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THE LIFE OF 
DANIEL COIT GILMAN 



THE LIFE 



OF 



DANIEL COIT GILMAN 



BY 



FABIAN FRANKLIN 



WITH THREE PORTRAITS 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1910 



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Copyright, IQIO, by 
Elisabeth Gilman 

Published, May, 19 10 






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PREFACE 

It was at Mrs. Gilman's request that I undertook in part 
to write and in part to edit this Life of President Gilman. 
The first chapter, relating to his boyhood and youth, was 
written by his brother, Mr. William C. Gilman, of Norwich, 
Conn. ; the second, covering the period of his connection with 
Yale College as librarian and professor, is the work of Miss 
Emily H. Whitney and Miss Margaret D. Whitney, daugh- 
ters of the late Prof. W. D. Whitney; and the third, giving 
the story of his presidency of the University of California, 
was contributed by Prof. William Carey Jones, of that Uni- 
versity. The editing of these chapters, and the preparation 
of the remaining five, embracing Mr. Gilman's life from 
the time of his coming to Baltimore until its close, fell to 
my share. 

After the work was completed, and ready for the printers, 
came the unexpected failing of Mrs. Gilman's health, and 
her death after a brief period of critical illness. The ap- 
preciation of Mr. Gilman, signed by her initials, which 
appears at the close of the biography, was written by her 
for the book, and occupies the position which had been 
assigned to it in the first place; the few references to her 
occurring in the volume have likewise been left unaltered. 
Her relation toward her husband was not only perfect in 
point of personal attachment, but included an ideal com- 
pleteness of sympathy with him in his labors and his 
aspirations; and after his death devotion to his memory 
was the absorbing interest of her life. 

F. F. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Pagb 

I Boyhood and Youth . . . . . f . : .< . . i 

II New Haven 39 

III California IIQ 

IV The Beginnings of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

versity 182 

V A Quarter-Century in the Johns Hop- 
kins Presidency 219 

VI Some Letters 3 2 ° 

VII Retirement from Johns Hopkins and 
Presidency of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion 3 82 

VIII Home Life and Personal Traits .... 404 

An Afterword 4 2 9 

Index ...... .. . •• • • 435 



CHAPTER I 

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

The apostle's exhortation, " Avoid genealogies, for they 
are unprofitable and vain," should not be disregarded, yet it 
will not be amiss to answer briefly the natural inquiry, who 
were the ancestors of Daniel Coit Gilman, before reflecting 
upon the influences surrounding him in his boyhood and 
youth that prepared him for his work in later years. 

His paternal ancestry has been traced in Wales for sev- 
eral generations previous to 1638, when Edward Gilman, 
the progenitor of most of those who bear the Gilman name 
in America, came from Hingham, Norfolk, England, with 
his wife and family, in the good ship " Diligent " to Hing- 
ham, on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. A few years 
later he removed to Exeter, New Hampshire, where his 
sons were already established in the lumber and milling 
business. Descendants of his are useful and influential in 
Exeter to-day, and in almost every state in the Union rep- 
resentatives of his family have been respected and esteemed 
for sound judgment and sterling traits of character, while 
not a few have risen to positions of distinguished usefulness. 

It is noteworthy that on the maternal side also, Daniel 
Coit Gilman is of Welsh descent, John Coit, the pioneer 
in this country, having come from Glamorganshire, Wales, 
to Salem, Massachusetts, before 1638. He migrated to 
New London, Connecticut, in 1647, where many of his 
tribe still remain. His twice great-grandson, Daniel La- 
throp Coit, grandfather of Daniel Coit Gilman, removed 
at an early age to the neighboring town of Norwich, where 
he married Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Ephraim Bill, 



2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

a marine agent for the United States during the Revolu- 
tionary War. 

He was also in direct descent in the seventh genera- 
tion from the Rev. John Lathrop, a graduate of Oxford 
University and a clergyman of the established Church of 
England, who, after two years' imprisonment for noncon- 
formity, was banished from his native land in the stormy 
days of Charles I and Archbishop Laud. He came to 
Boston in 1634, settled in the Plymouth Colony, and died 
at Barnstable in 1653. 

Among other ancestors was Simon Huntington, who came 
from Norwich, England, in 1633. From him descended a 
long line of distinguished men, and of honorable women 
not a few. 

Other ancestors were Governor Thomas Dudley, one of 
the founders of Harvard College; William Gager, " right 
godly man, skillful chyrurgeon, and one of the Deacons of 
the Congregation"; and Thomas Adgate, who, with the 
son of Gager and the two sons of Simon Huntington, was 
numbered with the founders of Norwich in 1659. All 
these, and indeed all of his ancestors in America, so far as 
is known, were of English stock transplanted to New Eng- 
land soil between 1630 and 1640. 

William Charles Gilman, the father of Daniel, born in 
Exeter, New Hampshire, was enrolled in his boyhood at 
Phillips Exeter Academy. Diverted from a purpose of 
entering Harvard College, by relatives who were iron mer- 
chants and nail manufacturers in Boston, he was inden- 
tured to them at an early age, and gained a thorough knowl- 
edge of the various branches of their work. Diligent in 
business, in his leisure hours he was the Secretary of the 
Howard Benevolent Society, organized for the relief of the 
sick and needy; and as a member of "The Rangers," a 
light infantry company, he did service in 18 15 at Fort 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 3 

Strong in Boston Harbor. Long-continued correspondence 
with his parents and sisters shows that he was the center 
of the family group, and that absence from home did not 
weaken domestic ties. When he became of age, in 18 16, 
having learned something of the practical process of manu- 
facture by actual work in the nail mill, he removed to Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, bringing with him experienced workmen, 
and built a large mill for the manufacture of cut nails by 
what was then a new process. 

In New England every little stream with a waterfall 
earns its right of way by turning mill wheels, and Mr. Gil- 
man soon became interested in establishing other manu- 
factories on the neighboring Yantic and Shetucket rivers. 
An extensive and prosperous business demanded his close 
supervision, but with rare judgment he gathered about him, 
almost instinctively, competent assistants in his counting 
room and the mills. Thus, relieved of the burden of rou- 
tine work, for more than twenty-five years there was hardly 
an important business enterprise in the town, whether for 
manufactures, finance, commerce or transportation, with 
which he was not identified. He was prominent in efforts 
for the improvement of public schools, and in all move- 
ments of a moral, religious or benevolent character he 
took an active part. He made a careful study of the early 
history of the town, was deeply interested in the welfare 
of the vanishing tribe of Mohegan Indians on their reser- 
vation a few miles distant; and, while devoted especially 
to affairs at home, his benevolent purposes were not cir- 
cumscribed by narrow limits, but extended to remote places 
in this and other lands. He was a ready speaker and writer, 
he had a pleasant voice and manner, a cheerful religious 
faith, a hopeful disposition, and, desiring to strengthen the 
things that remain, looked constantly for improvements in 
the future. 



4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Changes in his business affairs caused his removal in 
1 844 to the city of New York, where, until his death nearly 
twenty years later, his interest in works of practical benev- 
olence and philanthropy was unabated. Of silver and gold 
he had little, but of that little he gave gladly, and was un- 
ceasingly generous in gifts of time, thought and personal 
service. In a letter to his son he said, " the secret of being 
happy is in aiming at the happiness of others, — doing good 
as we have opportunity." These traits of his character are 
noteworthy because, as will be seen, they were afterwards 
manifested in his son; so much so,- that one of Daniel's 
sisters said " he is more like father than any other of his 
children." 

Daniel's mother, Eliza Coit, was a daughter of Daniel 
Lathrop Coit, a retired merchant of Norwich, a man of 
extensive reading, cultivated tastes and ample means, who 
had traveled in Europe at a time when to have crossed the 
Atlantic was a mark of distinction. She had an attractive 
person and a warm heart. Devotedly attached to her hus- 
band in prosperity and misfortune, and sympathizing in all 
his interests in every way, she made it the great business 
of her life to increase the happiness of her children and to 
strengthen the bonds of affection between them. 

Daniel was the fifth in a family of nine children, three 
sisters and one brother being older, and three sisters and 
one brother younger than himself. He was born in Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, July 6, 1 831, in the height of his father's 
prosperity, in a home surrounded with spacious gardens 
leading to a natural grove on a hillside overlooking the 
Yantic River and the manufacturing village at the Falls in 
which his father was interested. 

After graduating at primary schools, he entered the Nor- 
wich Academy, a school far above the average of schools 
in inland towns at that day, liberally supported by parents 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 5 

desiring to have their sons educated at home. The prin- 
cipal, Calvin Tracy, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 
1 83 1, was a good all-round teacher in the days when the 
schoolmaster was abroad in the land, and was supposed to 
know something about everything. The Wednesday after- 
noons were given to declamation — " speaking pieces," as 
the phrase was — and Saturday mornings were divided 
between " experiments " with the philosophical and chemi- 
cal " apparatus " with which the school was provided, and 
the exercises of a debating society in which grave political, 
moral and literary questions were formally discussed by 
regularly appointed disputants. 

Dr. Timothy Dwight of Yale University, a schoolmate 
of Daniel's, writing of this school forty years later in his 
interesting paper, " How I was Educated," said: 

This school was conducted by Mr. Calvin Tracy. . . . 
He had the good fortune, as I also had, to be surrounded 
by a bright company of boys gathered from the best families 
of the place. . . . 

The boys, I think, complained in after years that he did 
not have the best system of instruction; but somehow or 
other, either by means of what he did, or because of nature's 
gifts and the subsequent advantages they enjoyed, a goodly 
number of those boys have had an honorable place in the 
world. . . . 

The man whose happy lot it is to have been born in Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, and whose early years were familiar with 
its beautiful hills, has a recollection of the past, as he passes 
on in his manhood life, which is full of peace and pleasant- 
ness. And so long as the recollection abides with him, he 
will be thankful for it and will be glad to think of everything 
which makes a part of its joyousness. 

During an interval, after Mr. Tracy had closed his 
school, Daniel for a time played the schoolmaster's part for 
his younger sisters and brother in their studies at home. 
This was the beginning of his work as an educator ! 



6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

After this for a year he was under the instruction of 
Mr. Weld, an excellent teacher, and in his school sharpened 
his wits against those of bright girls as well as boys of his 
own age. He greatly enjoyed his studies here, was reading 
forty lines of Virgil a day, and, as a prize for English com- 
position, received a copy of John Foster's essay on " De- 
cision of Character." 

Athletics, at that time, had not become an exact science, 
but he engaged with zest in the common sports of boys in 
the primitive forms of ball playing, rowing, skating and 
the like ; but no amusement gave him greater pleasure than 
he found in the home grounds and in long walks and 
rambles over the forest-covered hillsides of his native town. 

He looked forward to the removal of his father's family 
to New York, in his fourteenth year, with some misgiving. 
He dreaded to think of living in a brick house in the middle 
of a city block with omnibuses rattling over the pavement, 
the noise and crowds, and the loss of the freedom of rural 
life. But he accepted unaccustomed conditions with a good 
heart, and soon found great pleasure in new scenes and 
occupations. 

Almost immediately he entered a school kept by his old 
instructor, Mr. Tracy, and, after a short time, as a pupil 
assistant, had charge of a room full of younger boys, while 
pursuing at the same time his studies in the upper class 
with private recitations. For this service he received a 
moderate compensation above his own tuition. 

His active, inquiring mind soon found abundant occu- 
pation for his leisure hours and holidays. He heard good 
music and saw good pictures. He heard the best political 
orators and the best preachers — Protestants, Jews and 
Roman Catholics; he visited the public charitable institu- 
tions for orphans, for the blind, and for the deaf and dumb, 
all the public buildings, the Navy Yard and the govern- 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 7 

ment forts. In short, he knew more about all the good 
things in the city in six months than most boys knew who 
had lived there all their lives. It gave him great pleasure 
to learn all he could about something new — a new packet 
ship, for instance, or a new invention — and to come home 
and tell about it. He was as ready then as he was in 
later life to acquire and to impart interesting and useful 
knowledge. 

Before the family left Norwich he had begun to pub- 
lish a weekly periodical called Our Paper. Intended ex- 
clusively for home circulation and as a means of communi- 
cation with absent members, it was continued for years 
after the office of publication was removed to New York. 
It was carefully written with his own pen, with ornamental 
head lines, and was by no means a bad primary course in 
journalism. He also formed a respectable collection of 
minerals and natural curiosities which he exhibited as " A 
School Boy's Cabinet." He was keen to gain new specimens, 
and in 1846 wrote to his sister at Norwich for a fragment 
of Sillimanite, a not very common mineral which, he had 
heard, was to be found there. 

He was also engaged for a short time in his father's 
mercantile house, where he gained some practical knowl- 
edge of business methods and acquired a remarkably clear 
and rapid handwriting. This facility with his pen intro- 
duced him to library work in making, for Henry Stevens, 
a card catalogue of books from the library of George Wash- 
ington which were purchased in 1848 by the Boston Athe- 
naeum. This experience was followed by catalogue work 
in the Mercantile Library of New York, with S. Hastings 
Grant, whom he spoke of later as his dearest friend out- 
side his own kin; and from their intimacy grew Norton's 
Literary Gazette, which maintained under their editorship 
for several years a high reputation for disinterested criti- 



8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

cism. Through their efforts was held in 1853 the first annual 
convention of American Librarians. 

His studies preparatory to entering Yale College were 
continued at the Cornelius Institute, New York, under Dr. 
John J. Owen, well known as an editor of Greek and Latin 
text books. This school was established primarily, though 
not exclusively, for candidates for the Christian ministry. 
As he had already become a member of the Congregational 
Church with which his parents were connected, it was not 
strange that some persons who were not well informed 
assumed that his purpose was to become a clergyman. But 
whatever thoughts revolved in his mind, he expressed no 
such intention, and was too conscientious to commit himself 
to that course when he was not fully persuaded in his own 
mind. Referring to his having become a church member 
at an early age, he said in 1875, " I suffer to this day from 
the injudicious fervor of those outside the family by whom 
I was then surrounded." 

In the summer of 1848 he went to New Haven, and, 
writing to his father, said, " the dreaded examination has 
passed and I have no more fears on that score. After two 
sessions of about five hours I received the usual certificate, 
and was surprised that I was not ' conditioned,' as I fully 
expected to be. I am greatly relieved. It seems as though 
a heavy load was removed, and I feel almost as free as 
the wind. I am sure if home had been within ten miles 
I should have set out for it on the full run this afternoon." 

At the beginning of the fall term, six weeks later, when 
he was three months past his seventeenth birthday, he was 
enrolled as a member of the Yale class of 1852. This was 
in the second year of the presidency of Dr. Woolsey, when 
Professors Silliman, Kingsley, Olmsted, Larned, Thacher, 
Dana and Hadley were active in the academic faculty. 

He found a number of Norwich boys, old comrades, in 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 9 

college, and among his intimate friends and contemporaries 
who have since reached eminent distinction were Timothy 
Dwight, who preceded him, and Andrew Dickson White, 
who succeeded him in the next class. 

He entered immediately with enthusiasm upon the diverse 
occupations of college life, which he described in detail in 
family letters, saying, in conclusion, " and so they go, day 
after day, week after week; there is a good deal of variety, 
a good deal of merriment, a good deal of pleasure, a good 
deal of trouble, and, more than all, a good deal of hard 
work at study, which no one can understand but those who 
are engaged in it." 

It was an inestimable advantage to him that his home 
during his college life was in the family of his uncle, Pro- 
fessor James L. Kingsley, whose varied learning, accurate 
scholarship, keen perceptions and delightfully subtle humor 
were stimulating and inspiring. Through his aunt and 
cousins he had such an introduction into the best social life 
of New Haven as would have been impossible had he been 
confined strictly to college walls. Fifty-six years later, his 
cousin said of him in a letter of pleasant reminiscence, " You 
have mentioned many activities: I can say he never seemed 
hurried or worried amidst them, but was always ready to 
lend a helping hand to whatever was going on in the family, 
and was just like a son and brother to us all." 

His college life was a full life. He was a thorough Yale 
man and deemed no Yale interests foreign to him. He main- 
tained an honorable position in scholarship, but was not a 
recluse, and his education was on broader lines than those 
of the college curriculum. Every hour not required for 
prescribed duties was so fully occupied with other affairs 
that he had " not time for so much as a walk in the woods," 
but found his recreation in change of occupation. 

As an undergraduate he was sensible of the obligation 



io LIFE OF DANIEL COIT OILMAN 

resting upon the student for the maintenance of the honor- 
able traditions of the college and for the advancement of 
sound learning. His dissertation at the Junior Exhibition 
was on " The Poetical in our College Life," and at the be- 
ginning of his senior year he said in a letter, " I had the 
pleasure last night of delivering before the three literary 
societies, Brothers in Unity, Calliope and Linonia, an ora- 
tion on ' The Claims of Yale College upon its Undergradu- 
ate Students.' " 

" Biennial examinations," introduced in his sophomore 
year, more rigid and exacting than former methods, were 
regarded by some, in the words of the song of the day, as 
" a bore," but he believed them to be valuable and instruc- 
tive. So, also, he cordially approved of a new method of 
instruction in rhetoric and elocution, by which the student 
was required to write what he had to say on a given sub- 
ject in the limits of a single page and declaim it before his 
class. This, he was sure, would commend itself to his 
father as a good exercise in the art of brevity and condensa- 
tion. At this time also he said, " I am more interested in 
my studies than ever before, particularly in mathematics." 

In his senior year the study of Latin and Greek was not 
required, and the students were permitted to take as " op- 
tionals " such studies as they preferred. Daniel chose sur- 
veying, " not merely for the purpose of being able to make 
surveys, but so as to understand them when they are made." 
Was this a foreshadowing of the Venezuela Boundary 
Commission? 

He also took as optionals Astronomy, Optics, Logic and 
Ancient History. " I am interested," he said, " in every 
one of these studies, and have never before taken so much 
interest in entering enthusiastically into all the college 
requirements." 

Before the end of his freshman year he and some of his 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH n 

classmates organized an afternoon Sunday school for chil- 
dren of the less favored class in the lower part of New 
Haven, and his interest in it was unabated throughout his 
college life. The purpose of the teachers was not to give 
strictly religious instruction alone, but generally to promote 
the moral and physical well-being of the boys and girls who 
came under their influence. His father, always deeply in- 
terested in similar work in New York, where he was one 
of the founders of the Home for Friendless Boys, the Chil- 
dren's Aid Society, the Juvenile Asylum, and a " Boys' 
Meeting " on Sunday afternoons, fully sympathized with 
Daniel in this work, and many were the conferences they 
had, continued late into the night, on the best ways and 
means of extending it. At the outset Daniel said, " I be- 
lieve we all understand that a great deal of persevering 
work will be necessary, but if we can add to the happiness 
or the goodness of even a few we shall be well paid. . . . 
I am sure there is great need to teach those who are ready 
to work the best means of going to work." Hopeful and 
encouraging, yet cautious and prudent, his father said, " If 
you should see half as many plans checked as I have, you 
will find in many cases that the hindrance was a blessing, 
though at the moment unwelcome." There can be no doubt 
that the influence and example of his father were a powerful 
and life-long incentive to his progressive yet conservative 
philanthropic work. 

A letter to his father, written in his last year at college, 
and relating to the Sunday-school work, has been preserved : 

New Haven, May 24, 1852. 

My dear Father : 

You will be interested in hearing that the annual meeting 
of the " City Mission " of N. Haven was held last evening 
& that a prominent topic of consideration was the " Daven- 
port S. School." The Center Church was crowded, & Dr. 



12 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Bacon made a great speech upon the subject of doing good 
here in the city, dwelling at some length upon this Sabbath 
School enterprise. He gave with some minuteness an a/c 
of his visit to the School that very afternoon, & encouraged 
the teachers by his public remarks of approbation. He told 
the audience that he did not believe there were greater sav- 
ages anywhere than some who were bro't under the influ- 
ence of this School — yes not even in Koordistan! His 
idea, & I believe the city ministers all concur, is to have a 
building erected for a free church with convenient rooms for 
our S. School, sewing & singing classes, & an office for the 
city missionaries, who are to be dispensers of charities to 
the poor as well as of tracts & bibles to the destitute. A 
minister in addition to lay laborers he wishes to have em- 
ployed, & all this done right away. 

There seems to be no question that the enterprise wh. 
we started three yrs ago as a quiet Experiment, has the ele- 
ments of success & that the churches are getting desirous of 
carrying on that & similar wks to a far greater degree than 
they have ever done before. I cannot tell you anything more 
than this bare announcement of the meeting, but will give 
you a fuller rept. when I see you. 

Among other things Dr. Bacon came out very emphatically 
with the remark " It is a SHAME, yes my Hearers, it is a 
SHAME to N. Haven that a few young men at college in 
addition to their time & labor should be obliged to pay the 
expenses of such a school, especially that for want of a room 
in wh. to meet they should be compelled to hire a store at 
a rent of three dollars a Sunday, with the liability to be 
ejected at any time when the owner can secure a regular 
tenant." 

What will be done after the talk remains to be seen. 
Meanwhile, our school has never appeared more prosperous. 
We have no trouble about noise. We have in attendance, in 
this new room more than we have ever had before, — on 
one Sund. 84 schol. on another 91. — We have started (in 
a separate room) an infant class, (numbering 22 last Sun- 
day) for which Miss Jane Skinner & others are desirous of 
securing Harriet's services, & have spoken to me in relation 
thereto. Please give her an official invitation to assume its 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 13 

charge next Sunday. We have every wk. nowadays a sew- 
ing class at wh. twenty girls were present on Saturday & a 
singing class at a later hour with about 25 in attendance. 
The teachers are all I might say enthusiastic in their efforts, 
& have had one or two additions to their no. of great effi- 
ciency — Mrs. Dana is one. I want very much to have you 
see the school this summer & hope very much that you will 
be able to spend a Sabbath here. 

Alongside this letter it is interesting to place one written 
a few months later to Charles Loring Brace, in which quite 
a different side of his religious nature is brought out: 

New York, August 19, 1852. 
My dear Brace : 

Your letter of Sunday did not reach me until last even- 
ing or I assure you it would have been more promptly an- 
swered. Little did I think when I read of the Austrian ad- 
ventures of our Pedestrian Correspondent and sympathized 
with his various and peculiar experience abroad that a year 
thereafter we should be journeying over Berkshire hills to- 
gether with our friends, and should meet with such occur- 
rences as would make us sympathize most closely and feel 
far more like brothers than like ordinary friends. 

It was just like your own frank self to write so kind a 
letter to us on the Sunday after we parted. We thought and 
spoke of you several times upon that day and wished you 
had remained in Williamstown to enjoy the many things 
which we enjoyed, and it is pleasant now to hear from you 
that our many common interests were also on your mind. 
But I don't wish merely to thank you in a general way for 
writing as you did an expression of your sympathy, — but 
more especially to respond to the sentiments on Christian 
acquaintance which you there bring out. I agree with them 
most fully and only regret that I did not know at an earlier 
time upon our journey what were your feelings upon a few 
such topics. I tell you, Brace, that I hate cant and all that 
sort of thing as much as you or any one else can do. It is 
not with everyone that I could enjoy a talk upon religious 



i 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

subjects. I hardly ever wrote a letter on them to those 
whom I know best. But when any one believes in an inner 
life of faith and joy and is willing to talk about it in an 
earnest, every day style and tone, I do enjoy it most ex- 
ceedingly. Some day or other we will have a talk upon 
such matters and see how we shall agree. For one, I don't 
believe that all the almsgiving, useful as it is, is going to do 
one half as much towards reforming our world as the giving 
which President Hopkins talked about on Sunday, — the 
giving of kind thoughts and acts and words to those who 
are in need or trouble, in short, the giving of one's self. 
I learnt some lessons on our recent expedition pertaining to 
this very matter which I shall not soon forget. 

You speak of our last evening together and wish we had 
had more such interviews with one another. How queer 
it is that we feel constraint ever upon religious matters and 
especially when the avowals of all are almost the same. 
Yet this very feeling of constraint or some other reason 
prevented that which would have given zest to all our other 
pleasures, but if we ever start off upon another such excur- 
sion we shall know better how to manage in very many 
ways. ... 

Throughout his collegiate course, and indeed at an earlier 
period, he was reluctant to be a burden on his father. He 
therefore improved at all convenient times every opportun- 
ity to engage in private teaching, and in newspaper and 
literary work. Even the skill in ornamental lettering with 
his pen acquired in his boyhood became remunerative in 
inscribing on their diplomas the names of candidates for 
academic degrees. He never waited for something to do; 
the thing to be done always came to him. The question 
was never what? but which? By these various means he 
not only contributed to his own support, but was enabled to 
indulge his generous impulses in promoting the happiness of 
others and in giving substantial aid to the undertakings in 
which he was engaged. Working with all his might for the 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 15 

good of the cause, he was alike devoid of selfishness and 
of personal ambition. 

The year following his graduation was by no means time 
misspent. Inducements to enter a business career did not 
strongly appeal to him, and so many fields invited him that 
he could not fairly be charged with neglecting the teachings 
of Foster's " Decision of Character " if he took his own 
time for reflection and selection. He had no lack of coun- 
sellors, and among them those who were least competent 
were the most forward to determine for him whether he 
should be a journalist, a librarian, a clergyman or a general 
philanthropist. 

In reply to a question whether Daniel had " chosen his 
profession" his father said, "Why, I don't know; he is 
always working, rather than professing." This was most 
true. He was testing his strength; reconnoitering the 
ground; trying on his armor. In the autumn of that year 
he visited Boston and, under the auspices of Mr. Charles 
Folsom, had access to all the treasures of Harvard Col- 
lege and the famous private libraries of Mr. Prescott, Mr. 
Everett and Mr. Livermore. But, resisting strong tempta- 
tions to engage in literary work in Boston, he returned to 
New Haven and occupied himself with teaching, with his 
own studies and with Norton's Literary Gazette. 

A few months later he was enrolled as a graduate student 
at Harvard College. His home was in the family of Pro- 
fessor Arnold Guyot, where French was the spoken lan- 
guage, and physical and political geography an interesting 
theme. 

In December, 1853, he and his life-long friend, Andrew 
Dickson White, sailed for Europe as attaches of the 
United States Legation at St. Petersburg under ex-Governor 
Thomas H. Seymour, minister plenipotentiary. Pending 
the arrival of Governor Seymour, whom he had preceded 



1 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

by a few weeks, he traveled in England and, at a meeting 
of the National Public School Association at Manchester, 
by invitation of Richard Cobden and John Bright, delivered 
an address on " Common School Education in America " 
which, said the Manchester newspapers in fully reporting 
it, was " enthusiastically received." As one of his last en- 
gagements before leaving home was a visit to the largest 
and newest public school in New York, he was not unpre- 
pared for the occasion, which was remarkable not only be- 
cause of his youth — he was not yet twenty-three years old 
— but because he spoke unexpectedly to strangers in a 
strange land. 

The letters of Cobden — to whom he had had an intro- 
duction from his brother-in-law, Rev. J. P. Thompson — 
referring to this educational meeting are interesting: 

Midhurst, 3 Jany, 1853. 
Dear Sir: 

The Education Conference is fixed for the 1 8th ihst in 
Manchester. If it should suit your convenience to be pres- 
ent, I shall be most happy to meet you there. And if you 
could throw in a word to help us to imitate the wise toler- 
ance of your common school system it might tend to the re- 
moval of the religious or rather the sectarian difficulty which 
has hitherto prevented us from establishing in this country 
any thing deserving the name of national education. I shall 
pass through London on my way to Manchester, & if it will 
suit you to be there at the time named, be good enough to 
let me know & I am 

Yours sincerely, 

R. Cobden. 
Danl C. Gilman, Esq. 

Midhurst, 13 Jany, 1853. 
My dear Sir: 

I hope you will address the meeting at Manchester. On 
a former occasion, at a precisely similar meeting, Doctor 






BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 17 

Bacon delivered two speeches, & produced an excellent effect. 
Our difficulty is the religious question. Show the meeting 
how you reconcile the rights of conscience on religious mat- 
ters & the demands of society for secular instruction. Give 
us some statistics of what you are doing in the States, & 
shame us out of our intolerance & supineness. Tell the meet- 
ing strongly — that you consider in America that all you 
possess that is most precious in social development & po- 
litical freedom you owe solely, under providence, to your 
system of education — 

I remain very truly yours, 

R. COBDEN. 
D. C. GlLMAN, Esq. 

At G. Moffatt's, Esqr., M.P., 

103 Eaton Square, 
Thursday morning 
[Jan. 26, 1853]. 
My dear Sir : 

I have pleasure in forwarding you a note of introduction 
to Lord Shaftesbury. — I am glad to learn that you were 
pleased with your trip to Manchester. For myself, I may 
say, that my part of the performance was sadly marred by 
the dreadful heat of the room, owing to which my brain 
seemed to lose its powers, & I was for a moment in almost 
a fainting state, & fairly lost the thread of my argument, a 
circumstance which never happened to me before. — All 
our friends were greatly gratified with your remarks. You 
could not have said any thing more useful & appropriate. 
Believe me 

Faithfully yours, 

R. Cobden. 
Dl. C. Gilman, Esq. 

After nearly two months in England he went to Paris 
and, with the purpose of improving his knowledge of 
French before proceeding to St. Petersburg, was made at 
home in a family of French Protestants where not a word 
of English speech was tolerated. Twice a day, before 



1 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

breakfast and dinner, each time for an hour, one of the 
young ladies of the family gave him a lesson in pronun- 
ciation, her mother sitting near by with a complacent smile 
of encouragement. In this way he progressed famously for 
several weeks. 

Good as these people were and regular as they were in 
going to church on Sunday morning, they seemed to look 
upon him as a sort of singular puritan because he did not 
care to walk in the Champs Elysees on Sunday afternoon, or 
run to see the fatted ox of the carnival on Dimanche Gras. 
It did not grate upon their feelings to go on Sunday after- 
noon to a great children's ball in the circus of the Empress, 
at which some thousands of people assembled to see some 
hundreds of children dance. The sight would have formed 
a strange contrast to his father's " Boys' Meeting." — 
" But," he said, " it is hard to realize how different France 
and America are in this one particular, — the observance 
of the Sabbath. The education of the people, and all the 
associations, even of the Protestants, are as different as it 
is possible that they can be in a country which calls itself 
Christian. You must make your own reflections as I keep 
making mine." 

This, however, was not the only phase of Parisian life 
that interested him. The excellent letters he had brought 
and the special courtesies extended to him by the resident 
legation introduced him to many places that are not easily 
accessible to all travelers, and also to many persons of dis- 
tinction. Indeed, with studying French, " lion chasing," 
letter writing and visit paying, he was as busy as he had 
ever been at home, was " never in better health and spirits, 
and never felt that he was learning more." 

In letters to his sisters he gives a very full account of two 
great social gatherings which he attended on successive 
evenings. The first, in some respects the greatest fete of 






BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 19 

the year, was given at the Hotel de Ville by the Prefect of 
the Seine, in the name of the City of Paris: 

The idea in giving this fete in the name of the City of 
Paris seems to be that it will be beneficial to the tradesmen 
and working men of the city, and surely if it is beneficial to 
them to have the wealthy expend immense sums in equipage 
and dress, they must have reaped great gains last evening. 
Three or four such entertainments are given annually by 
the city, and those who have had good opportunities of 
judging assure me that the effect of the fete is much more 
magnificent than the receptions and balls at the Tuileries. 
Some seven or eight thousand invitations are given out to 
each of these entertainments, and if you will estimate not 
only the expense which the city of Paris incurs in lighting 
and decorating the saloons, in providing abundant and costly 
refreshments, and in furnishing the necessary attendants, 
but also the outlay, greater or less as the case may be, which 
is made for dress, gloves, jewelry, carriage hire, &c, by 
every one of those eight thousand visitors, you will derive 
some notion of the amount of money which is put in circula- 
tion every time such an entertainment is given. How wise 
the outlay may be considered as a matter of political 
economy I leave for others to discuss. I am only about to 
give an account of what I saw; the moral of the tale you 
are abundantly able, if you choose, to draw for yourself. . . . 

Our cards of invitation named the hour of eight o'clock, 
but it was nearly eleven when we took a carriage at the 
Hotel de Douvres. So many carriages are employed on 
such occasions that the strictest police and military arrange- 
ments are necessary to secure general order. General con- 
venience is entirely out of the question. About a mile 
from the Hotel de Ville the police arrangements were first 
manifest. Certain streets were assigned for the entrance of 
carriages and others for their exit, so that with the Hotel de 
Ville as a centre there were numerous trains of public and 
private conveyance extending out in every direction in radii 
of a half mile and often of a mile in length. We drove as 
near as possible without falling into one of these trains, and 
then preferred walking to waiting, as people often have to 



20 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

do, two or three hours within a short distance of the place, 
before their turn will arrive for entering and alighting. At 
every corner for a long distance were stationed horse guards, 
foot soldiers and policemen who secured the utmost order. 

Entering by the main entrance we found ourselves in a 
saloon of one or two hundred feet in length, upon one side 
of which were innumerable small rooms for depositing coats 
and shawls, and on the other behind a slight railing was an 
amusing group of several hundred coachmen and footmen, 
who had waited upon private persons to the ball and who 
were now waiting for their return. 

Leaving this first saloon on the ground floor we ascended 
a short staircase, the sides of which were lined with beauti- 
ful shrubs and trees growing luxuriously. At the head of 
the stairs was a sheet of falling water, some twenty feet in 
length, and near it one or two beautiful jets. All around 
these waters were a profusion of flowers, brilliant lights, and 
exquisite statues. Leaving this place we ascended a mag- 
nificent flight of stairs upon nearly every step of which was 
a soldier of the Imperial Guard or an usher of the occasion, 
all dressed in most brilliant uniforms. From this flight of 
steps we passed into the reception room where the prefect 
of the Seine (in uniform) and his wife, attended by the 
mayors of the different arrondissements (thirteen in num- 
ber) were stationed in stately array. Each person on enter- 
ing exchanged salutations separately with the prefect and 
his lady and then generally with the row of attendant offi- 
cials — passing on to the" Grand Ball room, which furnished 
certainly the most brilliant [display] of diamonds and the 
richest dresses that I ever formed an idea of. Among the 
gentlemen were all ranks of military costume, court and 
diplomatic dresses, as well as the ordinary evening dresses, 
but as for the ladies' dresses, I shall not even attempt so 
general a description as that. You can imagine what it was 
much more accurately than I can describe it. What as- 
tonished me most in regard to it was the profusion of 
jewelry. I trust, however, that I am not wanting in gal- 
lantry to the French ladies when I say that I think I have 
seen more of fine looking ladies at a party in America than 
I saw amid all the brilliancy of this great fete. . . . 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 21 

The letter goes on to describe with an accuracy and viv- 
idness which show both his interest in the scene and his 
desire to convey it to his correspondent, the brilliancy of 
various features and the care and thoroughness of the ar- 
rangements for comfort and safety. " As I said at the 
beginning," he writes in conclusion, " you must make your 
own moralizing on the contrast between American and 
French society." 

The second occasion, described in a letter of February 
2 3> 1 854, was that of a reception ball by the Emperor and 
Empress, the going to which had involved a problem of no 
little difficulty, the question of diplomatic costume for Ameri- 
cans having assumed " such an especially delicate character 
here in Paris, that Gov. Seymour declined being present 
and his secretary and myself were consequently not willing 
to take advantage of the facilities which were otherwise 
open to us." How he solved the problem does not exactly 
appear, but it seems that, after having given up all idea of 
going, a plan occurred to him " the result of which was that 
I went to the Palace last evening and saw the splendor of 
the French court, without having made any compromise 
of Gov. Seymour's position on the subject of diplomatic 
costume. ... I had engaged to dine with a party of 
friends, so that I was occupied until nine o'clock; I then 
had an hour to dress, in what costume I shall not now say, 
and at ten o'clock I was at the Tuileries." His letter gives 
a very graphic account of the forms of presentation to their 
Imperial Majesties and of the general character of the 
occasion. 

His route to St. Petersburg was through Berlin, where 
he met his college classmate, Jacob Cooper, and also Pro- 
fessor Noah Porter of Yale, with whom he had an inter- 
view of great interest which will be referred to hereafter. 
He arrived in St. Petersburg, March 24, 1854, in nine 



22 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

days from Berlin, the minister and his suite having been 
cooped up in a diligence with no little discomfort for six 
days and nights from Warsaw, driving post-haste and stop- 
ping only to change horses. 

Americans in Russia at this time were treated with the 
most distinguished consideration, the greater because of 
the impending war with England and France ; and as at 
Paris, so at St. Petersburg, his relations with the legation 
gave him unusual facilities for seeing under exceptionally 
favorable conditions all that he most desired to see in that 
great capital. Under special escort and with special honors, 
the minister and his attaches had access to the most im- 
portant institutions controlled by the different departments 
of the government, the reformatories and technical schools, 
the arsenals and great hospitals, the imperial library, the 
lyceum and other institutions of learning. 

As the eyes of the world were on Cronstadt at that time, 
especially noteworthy was a visit to that great fortification, 
and to the Russian fleet of thirty-two vessels lying in the 
channel. Under the escort of the admiral himself, he in- 
spected the flagship thoroughly, from the admiral's cabin to 
the quarters of the seamen. 

The following letter, one of many, is a single chapter of 
his interesting experiences in St. Petersburg: 

St. Petersburg, June 19, 1854. 
. . . You may remember that in some of my other letters 
I have intimated that although I had very good opportuni- 
ties here for making acquaintances, I found some difficulty 
in visiting public institutions. Not that admittance was any- 
where actually refused, but that a multitude of forms were 
necessary before the desired entrance could easily be effected. 
At length however the door is opened and every day brings 
me some new opportunity of seeing and learning in regard 
to one or more of the magnificent institutions with which 
this city abounds. . . . 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 23 

In striking contrast with America and England every- 
thing here is under Government control, and not merely in 
a general way, but in the particular administration of what 
would seem to us quite insignificant details. The Emperor 
and Empress and their children, the Grand Dukes and 
Duchesses, are the acknowledged heads of all sorts of edu- 
cational, benevolent and charitable institutions. Some of 
these are in direct relations with the Imperial family and 
others only through Ministers of the crown, but instead of 
there being one Minister as in France and Belgium to whom 
such things are referred, they are here divided among all. 
The Minister of War has part, of the Navy another part, 
of the Appanages still another part, the Minister of Public 
Instruction has control of the fourth, and so on. Now when 
I tried to visit such establishments, I found I could not see 
each one by simply applying to the Janitor, or asking the 
Director, but each request had to be referred to some one 
of the highest authorities. You can imagine that this was 
a slow and not very satisfactory mode of procedure. So 
when Mr. Seymour was fairly established and the members 
of the Legation had been duly presented to the Emperor, 
he had the kindness to address a note to the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, Count Nesselrode, stating my desires and 
requesting leave for me to see the public establishments of 
St. Petersburg, of which I subjoined a most copious list. 
Count Nesselrode read it over with Mr. Seymour, and roll- 
ing up his forehead in a way quite peculiar to himself, took 
off his spectacles and replied: — " Oh, yes, certainly; I did 
not know we had so many. I will write to them all." Mr. 
Seymour said that if he would give me one general letter of 
introduction or authorization it would be quite enough, but 
no, he said, it would be better to write to each one sepa- 
rately. So in a few days after, a huge diplomatic letter 
sealed with the double-headed eagle was left upon Mr. 
Seymour, stating in the most formal manner that the re- 
quests of Mr. Seymour in behalf of Mr. Gilman had been 
referred to his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Heri- 
tier, and that he had directed that all the military establish- 
ments should be shown to Mr. Gilman. This was followed 
a few days after by a similar note stating that his Imperial 



24 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Highness the Grand Duke Constantine had given similar 
directions for the navy schools. A third came from the 
ministry of war, and the fourth from the ministry of the 
Appanages, all of course " seizing the opportunity to renew 
to Mr. Seymour the assurance of the most distinguished 
consideration." 

These letters were followed by calls from various offi- 
cers, who said they were appointed to arrange the day and 
hour of the visits to one and another of the establishments. 
The time being agreed upon, the officers one By one have re- 
turned at the day appointed and have very kindly waited 
upon me in their own carriages to the different establish- 
ments. In this way I have now visited the different military 
corps, some eight or ten in number, the naval corps, the 
Lyceum, corps of pages, the school of agriculture and so 
on, while I have appointments for quite a number of other 
institutions. 

I am entirely unaccustomed to so much politeness as is 
evinced and although I am perfectly well aware that these 
special attentions are intended by the authorities as a com- 
pliment to the Legation, and through it to the country of 
which it is the representative, yet I esteem myself par- 
ticularly fortunate in having the opportunity to go about so 
fully, in a way which other travelers, if I may judge from 
their books, have very seldom enjoyed. 

Everywhere I go, the Director of the Establishment, who 
in the military schools is a Lieutenant General or Major 
General, and in the other professions is of corresponding 
rank, is waiting at the door in full dress uniform, attended 
by his full staff. These higher officers without exception 
speak French and there is now and then one who also 
speaks English. They all go through the whole establish- 
ment, pointing out every detail and answering every ques- 
tion with very great fullness. In the kitchen they insist 
upon my trying the soup or other dishes which may happen 
to be preparing, in the lodging rooms they insist upon show- 
ing the condition of the bedding, and, droll as it may seem, 
in the school room some boy is summoned to throw off his 
outer garments and exhibit the excellent order of that part 
of his apparel which is not ordinarily exposed to a visitor's 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 25 

gaze. With one or two exceptions the scholars have never 
been in their classes at the time of the visit, and as Russ 
would have been there employed it would have been of 
little aid to me in obtaining a notion of their proficiency. 
The boys are generally arranged in their sleeping rooms, 
each standing by the side of his bed, and, as the visitors 
pass through, they fall in the rear so that by the time the 
examination of the establishment is concluded, a long proces- 
sion numbering several hundred is formed, who come down 
to the door and bow in parting with almost overwhelming 
politeness. ... At one of the corps, an institution for 
training officers of cavalry, I was introduced to half a dozen 
separate lads, and when I was about leaving, one of them 
came forward and made quite a speech, in behalf, as he said, 
of his companions, thanking me for the visit, and hoping 
that when I " returned to my distant native land " I would 
sometimes think of them. 

Another time one of the boys requested the favor of an 
autograph, at the same time presenting his book. As there 
was no furniture in the hall, I was looking for something on 
which to write, but in a moment his back was before me 
and the officers requested me to rest upon his shoulders. At 
another school, the head officer was a very entertaining old 
man. He told me that he was as familiar with American 
History as with Russian and asked a number of knowing 
questions about our country. In speaking of the Revolu- 
tionary heroes he said he considered them as " Saints," 
and in bidding me Good Bye he said if he was not a Russian 
he should wish to be an American. His dislike of the Eng- 
lish was not less striking, evinced among other things by 
his taking me to the Hall of Military Practice, where the 
older class of boys are having their final lessons in shooting 
and are almost eager for the fight. ... I will give you an 
account of a different sort of visit which I made a short 
time since. It was a call upon the Metropolitan of St. 
Petersburg, whose position is nearer to that of the Pope 
than is that of any one else in the Greek church. I had a 
great curiosity to see him and was endeavoring to arrange 
it, when Mr. Seymour expressed a desire to do so also. We 
contrived to let the Metropolitan know our wish, and he 



26 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

fixed an hour for receiving us at his residence in the monas- 
tery of St. Alexander Nevsky, almost out of town at one 
end of the Nevsky Perspective. The entrance to the mon- 
astery took us first through a cemetery, then over a canal 
by which the emperors used to come upon their visits, and 
then through a beautiful court, beneath the shady trees of 
which the monks were quietly strolling. The busy world is 
quite shut out from this beautiful yard, surrounded as it 
is by chapels, cloisters and seminary halls. The Metropoli- 
tan lives in princely style, numerous servants were in attend- 
ance to usher us up the stairs and into one of the parlors 
where the Metropolitan was waiting to receive us, attended 
by a young man of English descent, though of Russian ser- 
vice, whom we had expressed the desire to have present as 
an interpreter. His Eminence then led us through two or 
three saloons of great magnificence, adorned with cornices 
beautifully gilt and hung with admirable paintings, to a 
room which was still more handsomely furnished, and there 
he requested us to be seated. He was a man of fine ap- 
pearance and of what I suppose might fairly be called 
patriarchal mien. His hair was slightly gray and hung in 
flowing locks upon his shoulders behind, while his beard 
extended to his breast in front. His dress was a long loose 
gown of rich brown silk, and on his head was a high white 
hat from which a rich crape veil fell down behind. On the 
front of this cap was an emerald cross, another hung around 
his neck, two brilliant decorations were worn at his side 
and a very rich rosary and cross were held in his hand. He 
was not very talkative but inquired about many things in 
our country, asked about our forms of worship and told us 
some things about the services of his church. Unfortu- 
nately, he seemed quite as much afraid of Mr. Seymour's 
rank as Mr. Seymour was of his, and the visit was less free 
than it would otherwise have been. At its conclusion he told 
us that an Archimandrite of the monastery who had been 
ten years in Pekin would show us the Chapel and the Treas- 
ury. This last man was one of rare intelligence and infor- 
mation, and I hope to meet him again. As it was, I had a 
long and pleasant talk with him. I can give you no idea of 
the riches accumulated in this monastery. Robes for the 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 27 

priests, mitres, episcopal staffs or crosiers as I think they 
are called, communion services and shrines, all enriched with 
pearls and diamonds in untold numbers and of inestimable 
value, are hoarded here with singular delight. 

All this time he was a regular correspondent of four 
American newspapers. This work was the easiest way of 
earning his bread and butter, but was so distasteful to him 
that he wrote, " my great eagerness to go home is a detes- 
tation of writing letters for print, and I do not think I can 
stand another winter of it. It is, as you say, worse than 
writing book notices, and that is too dissipating for any 
good mind to follow long. When I return I shall avoid 
it as much as possible." 

Family affection was strengthened by constant corre- 
spondence with his sisters, — especially with his elder sister, 
Maria, who for many years was, without exception, his most 
intimate and affectionate counselor and confidante. 

To her, more than to any one else, he opened his heart, 
and disclosed his doubts, his fears, his hopes and his aspira- 
tions. Her warm affection, her sympathy, her clear percep- 
tions and her wise counsel, at this period when he was 
seriously deliberating on his future course, did more than 
anything else to clarify his opinions and bring them to a just 
conclusion. 

Writing to her of their trip to Berkshire County in 1850 
he said forty-four years later: 

The world looked very full of mystery then, and so it 
looks today: mystery in every direction quite as great to 
the eye of science as to the eye of faith. It also seemed 
to be a place for useful activities, and so we have surely 
found it. As I look back over the interval I am very con- 
scious of the good influence of my three older sisters, and I 
am only sorry that with such influences I did not turn out 
better. Nevertheless, to you and to those that are gone I 



28 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

am day after day profoundly grateful. Your allusion to 
" the future " that awaits us all reminds me of General 
Armstrong's last words. You may remember that he said, 
" How will the next world seem? Perfectly fair and 
natural, no doubt. We ought not to fear death. It is 
friendly." 

Mediaeval art and poetry and theology, from Dante to 
Milton, seem to me to have fixed on us moderns burdens 
which can be removed by going back to the Gospels, or by 
becoming as little children. 

He wrote to her from St. Petersburg in April, 1854: 

Goodyear's proposal was " providential " indeed. It has 
relieved me in part from the necessity of letter writing, and 
without it I never should have come here and should have 
lost one of the most interesting countries in Europe. . . . 
And what do you think I am " keeping " for? Tell me, some 
day when you write, for every year makes me feel that I 
must draw nearer to a point. When I go home to America 
I must have some definite notions. Day and night I think 
of that time, and in all I see and do I am planning for being 
useful at home. I find my wishes cling more and more 
towards a home in New England, and I long for an oppor- 
tunity to influence New England minds. If I am an editor, 
New York is the place; but, to tell the truth, I am a little 
afraid of its excitements, its politics, its money-making 
whirl. I look therefore more and more to the ministry as 
probably the place where I can do more good than any- 
where else : that is to say, if I can have a congregation 
which will let me preach such things as we have talked over 
so many times in our up-stairs confabs. I am glad you re- 
member those talks with pleasure, for I look upon them as 
among the greatest " providences " of my life. If ever I 
make anything in this world or another I shall owe it to 
the blessed influences of home. For me, it seems as though 
new notions and wider views of men and things were crowd- 
ing upon me with wonderful rapidity, and every day and 
almost every hour I think of some new thing which I wish 
to have accomplished in America. ... I find my thoughts, 






BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 29 

unconsciously, almost, dwelling on the applications of Chris- 
tianity or the principles of the New Testament to business, 
study, public education, political questions, travel, and so 
forth. I had a long talk with Mr. Porter in Berlin (it 
was three days long with occasional interruptions) on topics 
related to such as I have named, and he assures me that 
there are many places in New England ripe for the advocacy 
of some such views upon these questions as I have often 
hinted to you at home. I told him a great deal about my 
thoughts on such things, talking quite as freely and perhaps 
more fully than I have ever done with you girls at home. 
He seemed exceedingly interested. I told him that if I 
should become a minister I should want to preach about 
every day affairs — not in the style of H. W. B. if I could 
get above it, but in a more dignified manner — and that 
instead of dwelling long and regularly upon such points as 
original sin and the doctrine of election, I should urge the 
practical application of the Bible to common events and 
daily habits. Most of all I told him I should abjure cant, 
and the " technicalities " of theology, and that I should 
make my one great text — " Pure Religion and undefiled 
is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world." But I told him 
I was afraid to begin — lest I should not succeed, and lest 
if I should succeed according to what seemed to me right 
principles — proper clergymen who are accustomed to 
preach upon abstractions would " read me out of meeting." 
I cited Dr. Bushnell, H. W. Beecher and others — but he 
convinced me that what was objected to in them were un- 
necessary excrescences, so to speak; in the one case, mys- 
tical doctrinal views; and in the other rough, crude and 
undignified forms of expression — both of which faults are 
easily avoided. He told me that the kind of preaching I 
spoke of was the kind now needed — the kind which would 
be most influential of good — and on the whole he en- 
couraged me to attempt it. I feel more and more desirous 
to do so, and shall keep on, in all I see and hear abroad, 
with the examination of every influence now working upon 
men — churches and schools, politics and literature — and 
if I can, when I return to America, be useful either as writer 



3 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

or as speaker in promoting the spread of Christian prin- 
ciples, and their application to every matter great and small, 
I shall be delighted indeed. Let me know what you think 
about these things — I express myself very freely, altho' 
somewhat indefinitely — the latter, because I regard what 
I am saying as only supplementary to what I have often 
talked to you about before. 

Writing in a similar strain some time later from Berlin, 
he said: 

I am eager and sometimes even anxious to decide upon 
a definite course of active life, that is, to make choice of 
some position which I will aim to fill. But Mr. Barnard and 
Mr. Porter, separately and together, (for they met not long 
ago in New Haven,) say, " go on as you are now doing, and 
never fear for the future, there will be scores of open places 
even if you do not study a profession." So too comes your 
letter. " As it was in the beginning and is now, so shall it 
ever be!" "You are to supply emergencies and fill up 
gaps!" Alas! human nature is tempted to exclaim, for 
the gratification of ambition, and hail to the rewards that 
come from being generally useful and particularly useless ! 
But, seriously, it is a great question with me whether I 
ought not now to choose a particular calling and endeavor 
in due time to fill it. Generally at my age this certainly 
should be done, and shall I be more useful by being the ex- 
ception? . . . For some things I rejoice to find that my 
notions grow more and more definite. For instance, in the 
desire to act upon the minds of men, to do my part, even 
though it may be but little, for the elevation and improve- 
ment of such society as my lot may be cast in. It seems to 
me I care less and less for money and for fame, but I do 
desire to use what influence I can for the establishment of 
such principles and the development of such ideas as seem 
to be important and right. Whether this is done by the 
voice or the pen, or by both, whether in the pulpit or in the 
college, at the Cooper Union or in the Mercantile Library, 
in the editor's chair or in the office of a common school su- 
perintendent, cannot, I suppose, for many months, perhaps 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 31 

for many years, be decided. Meanwhile, there is enough 
to keep me busy, and if ever a man had occasion to trust in 
the friends who have suggested these different occupations 
it is surely I. " Now," they say, " master French and Ger- 
man to speak and write both," (in itself a two years' work!) 
" attend several courses in the University," " visit and study 
every country in Europe," " make friends in every city with 
whom you can hereafter correspond," " see in person all 
educational establishments, prisons, asylums and the like," 
" live abroad five years, come home with a degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy unchanged in American sympathies and New 
England habits, and some gap will be open for you to fill! " 
Well, there is " destiny " for you! I beg off from the ac- 
complishment of one half of this, and shall look in the end 
for only half a gap ! Seriously, however, I am not so un- 
settled as my tone of writing might seem to indicate. I know 
what to do for the present, and the rest I shall leave to an 
overruling Providence. 

His happiness in St. Petersburg was greatly enhanced by 
his affectionate intimacy with the family of William Ropes, 
an American merchant long resident there, and with them 
he became an attendant upon the American Chapel, where 
the services were conducted in the manner familiar to him 
at home. This brought him an interesting proposition, of 
which he wrote to his sister: 

In respect to this Chapel — I have something to say to 
you in confidence. The pastor, Mr. Ellerby, is about to 
leave for England, and next Sabbath is his last. Those of 
his congregation who remain are troubled as to what to do. 
There is no clergyman here to whom they can look, no 
theological seminary on which they can depend. How it 
has happened I cannot imagine, but last week one of the 
deacons applied to me, asking whether I would not conduct 
the services between Mr. E.'s departure and my own. I 
told him I had never had a theological education and was 
but very little accustomed to public speaking, and for these 
as well as other reasons I must decline. But this refusal 



32 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

he has not been willing to accept and has made the request 
in so urgent a manner, and with such assurance of the good 
which might be done, that I am sorely puzzled as to what 
to do. Preach — I cannot. — Talk I might, but I fear it 
would not be to the acceptance of the hearers. Still, if I 
take the hint of your note, and follow after all possible in- 
dications, I am not sure that I ought to insist upon refusing. 
If I decide to accept the request, I shall probably speak of 
it in another letter home, but if I do not, there is no need 
of any one hearing of what I have here said. The matter 
must soon be decided. There is one verse upon which I 
know I could talk — " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on thee." 

He never decided that it was best to assume the position 
thus urged upon him, especially as he was only to remain 
in St. Petersburg a short time after the departure of the 
regular preacher. 

He passed the winter of 1854-5 in Berlin, where he es- 
tablished lasting friendship with many distinguished schol- 
ars, among whom were Professor Pertz, the historian and 
royal librarian, and, in the department of physical and 
political geography in which he was specially interested, 
with the eminent Karl Ritter; also with F. Adolph Trende- 
lenburg and with Professor Karl Richard Lepsius. 

A letter from Berlin furnishes a picture of the Christmas 
festivities at which he was a welcome guest. 

Berlin, December 26, 1854. 

Sometimes, as you know, I feel quite homesick, and think 
that because my friends are all newly made they are no 
friends at all. But this I am well aware is not the case, for 
no one has more reason than I to rejoice in the number arid 
the kindness of the friends I have made in Europe. You 
will say so when I tell you of the peeps I have had at the 
Christmas festivities of Germany. 

A week ago today, I received a very friendly note from 
Mrs. Dr. Pertz, saying that if I had no other engagement 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 33 

for Christmas it would give her great pleasure if I would 
dine with the Doctor and herself. I returned an immediate 
reply, accepting of course, as there is nowhere in Berlin 
that I should have preferred to dine upon that day. It 
was well I did so, for very soon afterwards another invita- 
tion for Christmas dinner came in from another German 
professor, and various other invitations of more or less 
formality followed, all but one of which I declined. I 
wanted, to tell the truth, to see as much as I could of the 
German social life and think I made a very wise choice. At 
any rate no one of the Americans now in Berlin has seen such 
a sight as I enjoyed. The summons was " to drink a cup 
of tea at eight o'clock in the evening," so about half past 
eight I rang at the Professor's door. I found a large com- 
pany of thirty or forty persons old and young assembled, 
but the children were all long before in bed. I had hardly 
paid my respects to the Herr Professor and the Frau Pro- 
fessor, before they said " now you must go to work as all 
the rest have done; " — " there are apples to be hung and 
candles to be mounted and gingerbread men to be placed in 
a state of suspended animation, and will you not help the 
good work." I was right glad to be greeted in so friendly 
a way, and indeed the looks of the room quite prepared me 
for the laborer's salutation. Every one was busy. Learned 
Doctors were working as diligently as if they were " digging 
out Greek roots," and the good natured Fraus were plying 
their fingers as busily as if they were engaged in their favor- 
ite occupation of knitting. At one side of the room stood 
a noble spruce tree reaching quite to the lofty ceiling, and 
which was already partially laden with its Christmas fruit. 
At the top of the high steps which stood near was a learned 
professor gravely arranging the trifles which other younger 
persons brought him, and looking in his philosophical dig- 
nity very much as you might suppose old Socrates to have 
done when surrounded by trifling sophists. At another table 
sat another grave Doctor, a fine looking man whose gray 
hairs looked as though he might have had much experience 
in Christmas festivities. He was gilding nuts to be hung 
upon the tree. Others were busy in arranging the lights, 

3 



34 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

others were engaged in decorating two smaller trees which 
were to be given to two poor families. But every one was 
busy, every one was merry, and every one seemed to be re- 
joicing in the return of the Christmas holidays. 

When the decorations were over, Professor Lepsius drew 
the company into an adjoining room, and there, around the 
piano, a chorus of ten or twelve well trained male and 
female voices joined in singing some of the standard Christ- 
mas hymns of Germany. They did so with very great 
effect. 

A little after ten, the waiters came bringing in two large 
tables, set out for supper, one of which they placed in each 
parlor. The company were invited to take seats, the mar- 
ried and older people in one room, the younger ones in 
another. You would have been amused at seeing the enter- 
tainment provided for the evening refreshment. Roast 
beef and apple sauce was the first course, a kind of fried 
doughnuts with fruit was the second course, and the third 
was the Christmas cake from Konigsberg which the Frau 
Professor had just received as a present. Finally a glass 
barrel was brought in, holding about a gallon of some harm- 
less kind of warm punch. This was served to all the com- 
pany by the lady of the house, and finally one of the guests, 
a colleague of the Professor, rose and informed the com- 
pany that this was not merely a Christmas but a birthday 
festival, Professor Lepsius being then so many years in age. 
He then went on and in a graceful way complimented the 
Professor host, his wife and children, and concluded by in- 
viting all the company to join in wishing them health and 
prosperity. " Leben hoch! " said he to Professor Lepsius 
and his family. " Leben hoch," cried all the company, each 
one going glass in hand to touch the glass first of the Pro- 
fessor and then of his wife. Finally the host himself leaves 
his place and, after touching glasses with his wife, kisses 
her and then they drink to one another. 

This was the closing ceremony, for the company soon 
after rose, each one saying to his neighbor on either hand, 
" Blessed be the meal time." Every one soon after shook 
hands with host and hostess, as if in repetition of the good 
wishes, and then about twelve the company dispersed. 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 35 

On Monday, which was Christmas day proper, I saw 
the repetition of one or two trees, in all their brilliancy as 
good as new. 

I mentioned accepting an invitation to Dr. Pertz's for 
dinner. There was not a large company — say ten persons 
in all, but the afternoon was passed most agreeably. There 
was a sort of combination here between English and Ger- 
man customs. The roast beef and the turkey and plum 
pudding were declared to belong to Old England, but the 
tree which was all in its glory of lights as we entered the 
drawing room from the dining room was said to be purely 
German. Here as at Professor Lepsius's the only things 
upon the tree were trifles which looked pretty. Upon the 
tables around were the gifts received by different members 
of the family. I was quite unexpectedly gratified by receiv- 
ing a very pretty card case with the best wishes of Mrs. 
Pertz. I had no idea of being so remembered. At seven 
o'clock I bade this party good evening and hurried to Pro- 
fessor Braun's where I had been invited to see their tree 
at its second lighting. It had the same general character- 
istics as the others, with the addition of the Crib and the 
Christ Kind. After admiring all their presents, by which 
their tree was surrounded, I took tea with them and then 
excused myself to accept a third invitation of which I will 
tell you perhaps in another less lengthy letter. I passed as 
you see a very pleasant Christmas. 

Before closing this chapter it may be noted that in all 
these years he was almost forced by circumstances to con- 
sider the question whether it was his duty to enter the min- 
istry. From his youth up, he had been familiar with the 
doctrine and worship of the Congregationalists and of the 
denominations most closely allied to them; but as he grew 
older he became keenly interested in the work of earnest 
men in other religious bodies. Among these were the Rev. 
Dr. Muhlenberg, with his Sisterhoods in the Episcopal 
Church; the Rev. William Watson Andrews of the Catho- 
lic Apostolic Church (Irvingites) ; the Rev. Dr. Bellows, 



36 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

the broad-minded philanthropist; Mr. Hecker, who main- 
tained an Episcopal service in the lower east side in New 
York, with a ritual that was regarded by some as danger- 
ously "advanced"; and the Paulist Fathers, seeking to 
convert Protestants to the Roman Catholic faith. But 
none of them appealed to him so strongly as to give just 
cause for the apprehensions of some of his friends that he 
might be led astray by strange doctrines. 

He was not indeed prevailed on to become a Congrega- 
tional minister; yet, in the hope that he might enlarge his 
usefulness by occasional preaching, he did make application 
for a " license," for reasons set forth in the following letter 
to his elder brother, who was a Congregational minister: 

New Haven, July 10, i860. 

I have just taken a step of some personal importance in 
which I am sure you will be interested. I am not married 
nor engaged, but licensed to preach. You are aware that 
during the year past I have been following Professor Por- 
ter's lectures in Theology with a class of eight or ten young 
men, more than ordinarily industrious and intelligent. They 
went to the Annual Meeting of the New Haven Central 
Association and were licensed, a month ago, at a time when 
on account of my duties in college I could not break away. 
Last Tuesday, by special invitation as mine was a somewhat 
special case, I met the same association at Derby, — they 
suspended their rules, examined me, and finally voted me 
the usual approbation. You are aware that for a long time 
I have been considering the expediency of this step. In- 
deed Mr. Thompson invited me to meet the New York 
Association early in the spring, to which (on account of 
your connection and his with that body) I was naturally 
attracted. But I could not then quite see the way plain to 
take that step. Lately however it has been quite clear to 
me, that while I propose to remain in the Library, I should 
have increased opportunities of usefulness by preaching or 
by being ready to preach when invited. I do not at present 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 37 

have any purpose of " entering the ministry," and so I have 
stated to all with whom I have advised, — but those in 
whose judgment I can most trust see nothing in my present 
pursuits as Librarian incompatible with the work of an oc- 
casional preacher, and have approved of my engaging in it. 
When asked by the Association to state my reasons for ap- 
pearing before them I said candidly that I did not ask for 
a license in the usual form, as I was not a candidate for the 
Ministry, and had at the present time no purpose of becom- 
ing such, — but I asked that if upon inquiry they thought 
it would be wise for me to accept such invitations as often 
come to me, they would formally express their approbation. 
They first voted an approval of my purpose, and then ex- 
amined me in all the Chief Doctrines, say for an hour or 
more, and then voted to give me a license in the usual 
form. 

I did not foresee that I was adding so much as I fear I 
have added to my responsibility. Before leaving the As- 
sociation I was invited to preach four times, and have now 
two more invitations. I declined the former summons, and 
my mind is not yet quite clear as to what course I shall 
pursue. I shall let the future decide. If opportunities of 
increased usefulness present themselves, I certainly ought 
to rejoice, and I think I shall not be wanting in willingness 
to improve them; but I feel an unaffected distrust of my 
power to instruct an audience, which makes me shrink after 
all from beginning the work for which by intellectual train- 
ing — by reading, etc. I am not wholly unprepared. As I 
only desire to be useful I think I can safely go forward with 
deliberateness, and judge by and by better than at present, 
what course to pursue. 

Your affectionate brother, 

D. C. G. 

Some of these invitations he may have accepted, but he 
never availed himself very largely of the faculty granted 
to him. He valued too highly the freedom, the independ- 
ence of the Congregationalists to attach himself to any other 
church, however impressive might be its ceremonial, and he 



38 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

never withdrew his membership from the Congregational 
Church established in Yale College. 

These letters sufficiently indicate his desires and purposes 
at this critical period of his life. In what way and to what 
extent those purposes were fulfilled will appear hereafter. 

As Commissioner from Connecticut to the Universal Ex- 
position he spent the summer of 1855 in Paris, and after an 
absence of two years returned to his native land. He imme- 
diately re-established himself in New Haven, and was made 
assistant librarian of Yale College. His life there, uninter- 
rupted for seventeen years except by a summer tour in 
Europe in 1857, W1 ^ De tne subject of the next chapter. 



CHAPTER II 

NEW HAVEN 

Gilman came back from Europe full of enthusiasm for 
work. He had written to his sister from Italy that what 
he most desired to do was to influence New England minds, 
but as yet no plan of life had shaped itself for him. The 
preacher and the teacher were both present in his nature 
and, as has been seen, he at one time seriously thought of 
entering the ministry. But though his religious convictions 
were deep and strong, and though the interest and activity 
in philanthropic work which he showed from his earliest 
years was never abandoned, yet that was not the cause to 
which he was destined to devote the full strength of his 
energies. 

As we follow him through the period of years spent in 
New Haven, formative years of the greatest importance in 
determining the course his life should take, we shall see 
how all the forces of his nature, all the talents with which 
he was so plentifully endowed, were leading and compelling 
him into the line of work in which he was to become pre- 
eminent as a leader. At first no controlling purpose was 
discernible. Many paths enticed him, every opportunity 
was for him an opportunity to give willing and enthusiastic 
service, all the new ideas with which the times were rife 
found hospitable entertainment with him, and one activity 
ever led to another. 

It seemed to some of those who knew him at this time as 
if a man who was apparently scattering himself in so many 
directions, who had so many irons in the fire, could not 
achieve depth and unity of purpose. But as we follow his 



4 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

life from year to year and find him engaged in teaching, in 
raising funds, in administrative work in the college library 
and in the Scientific School, in writing for magazines and 
for newspapers as correspondent and critic, in lecturing on 
education in general and scientific education in particular, 
in serving on city and state school boards and on committees 
for any good cause, in making addresses to interest people 
in various enterprises and in appearing before legislatures 
to urge the adoption of those he had most at heart, we shall 
see that every one of these activities in which he was gain- 
ing the knowledge of an expert was an important factor in 
the development of his powers as a great organizer and 
director of education. 

On his return to this country in the latter part of 1855, 
Gilman went immediately to New Haven and looked over 
the ground there. He was first employed in raising funds 
for the Scientific School, then at the point of changing from 
two or three unconnected departments into an organized 
whole, and the zeal with which he undertook this work was 
rewarded with substantial success. 

He brought with him to the task a strong faith in what 
was then called the " new education." This subject was 
uppermost at that time in the minds of all who were inter- 
ested in the problems of education, and many fierce battles 
were fought before the study of the laws of nature was 
allowed a place by the side of the studies which tradition 
had made dominant in our colleges. The very air was tense 
with excited feeling, and many were the slurs cast at the 
" bread and butter " sciences on the one hand, and at the 
" dry bones " of classical culture on the other. It was hard 
to convince the adherents of the old school that the study 
of science could train the mind. Gilman was one of those 
who could see the good on both sides, and he took an eager 
part in this discussion. He had also made a careful study 



NEW HAVEN 41 

of several institutions in Europe where the " new educa- 
tion " had long been established with fruitful results. He 
not only believed in the cause, but he had faith in himself, 
and in his fellow men and in all efforts for progress. The 
fact that he had himself enjoyed a classical education and 
could speak for both sides made him a specially valuable 
ally to the Scientific School at that time and through all 
the years of his connection with it. His naturally genial 
and easy manner and address, which had been further devel- 
oped by his year in the diplomatic service and his meeting 
with many men of distinction and importance, fitted him to 
meet strangers and interest them in his work, and thus was 
another factor which assisted materially in bringing the 
Scientific School and its aims before the public. 

His family connection with the Sillimans — his brother 
had married one of Professor Silliman's daughters — 
brought him into intimate relations with another of the 
same family, Mrs. Dana, and her husband. Professor 
Dana was at that time giving much thought to the affairs 
of the Scientific School, and it was largely at his suggestion, 
and under his direction, that Gilman prepared the " Pro- 
posed Plan for the Complete Organization of the School 
of Science connected with Yale College," a small pamphlet 
printed for private circulation in 1856. 

In this pamphlet, and notably in the appendix, entitled 
" Notes on the Schools of Science of Europe," we plainly 
see the results of Gilman's careful observations of technical 
and scientific institutions gathered in his two years of travel 
abroad. And here we meet for the first time the idea which 
he emphasizes again and again in later years, that it is im- 
portant to gain a thorough knowledge of what is being done 
in kindred foreign institutions, not in order to copy their 
methods but to adapt them to local conditions and to the 
wants of this country as acknowledged by practical men. 



42 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

These views are also brought forward in two articles pub- 
lished the same year, entitled " Scientific Education the Want 
of Connecticut," and " Scientific Schools in Europe," the lat- 
ter appearing in Barnard's American Journal of Education. 
The " plan " flew far ahead of what was then possible 
to the struggling and rudimentary Scientific School, but 
shadowed forth what since that time has been accomplished. 
Gilman preserved in his library a bound copy of the proof 
sheets of his pamphlet with emendations and corrections 
in Professor Dana's handwriting; and in a note written at 
the time, which still lies between its pages, he says: 

In March last, by the appointment of the College faculty, 
I undertook to raise subscriptions for the School of Science. 
Upon inquiry it was soon found that other similar projects 
were already on foot in the state and it was deemed ex- 
pedient to interest the friends of such schemes in this of Yale 
College. A meeting of gentlemen from different parts of 
the state was accordingly held in New Haven, the result of 
which, it is believed, was to prevent any further efforts for 
a school of science elsewhere in the state. 

It became evident very soon that the plan of the school 
which it was proposed to establish here should be stated in 
some detail, and I was requested by the scientific professors 
to aid them in drawing up full statements of what was 
wanted. In connection with the preparation of these pam- 
phlets, the publication of one of which was authorized by 
the corporation, I was occupied for some weeks. 

Professor Dana was then requested to deliver a public 
address on the subject of the school of science, which he 
did early in the summer. By request of the Alumni Com- 
mittee, the discourse was repeated at Commencement and 
was afterwards printed. The arrangement for the first of 
these meetings caused some delay in the progress of the 
subscription. . . . 

At the beginning of the fall term, now closing, I entered 
upon the duties of Assistant Librarian in the college and, 
in accordance with a previous understanding, was obliged to 



NEW HAVEN 43 

cease from active efforts in behalf of the School of Science. 
This I did with great regret, for much general preparatory 
work had been done, the fruit of which I should have been 
happy to reap. 

Gilman became assistant librarian in the fall of 1856. 
The place of librarian was held by Edward C. Herrick, a 
most accomplished scholar, who had made the library a 
center of intellectual life for the college community. He 
had devoted himself to it exclusively for nine years, but in 
1852 had been appointed treasurer of the college, and the 
duties of this office must have caused much of his work as 
librarian to devolve on his assistant. 

At this time Gilman was living in rooms and taking his 
meals with other young officers of the college at the New 
Haven House. During his college course he had lived with 
his uncle Professor J. I. Kingsley, and later, in 1857, he 
lived with his cousin William L. Kingsley, the editor of the 
New Englander, a periodical to which Gilman contributed 
many articles and to which he constantly refers in his letters. 
He and Mr. Kingsley were very congenial, and bound to- 
gether by intellectual as well as by family ties. Outside this 
little group of kinsmen he had a large circle of warm friends. 
Social life in New Haven has perhaps never been pleasanter 
than during the years which he spent there; it still had the 
simplicity of the early New England life, while made up of 
brilliant and interesting people, many of whom had studied 
or traveled in Europe and in many ways had seen much of 
the world. The years of the war, with all its stirring of 
emotion, brought friends still more closely together, and a 
common interest and object for which all were striving, 
heart and soul, drew him specially closely to the men who 
with him were to build up the Scientific School. 

When Gilman first came among them this group com- 
prised Professors George J. Brush, John A. Porter, Wil- 



44 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

liam A. Norton, Chester S. Lyman, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., 
Samuel W. Johnson, and William D. Whitney. Later they 
were joined, among others, by William H. Brewer, W. P. 
Trowbridge, who went from Yale to Columbia, Thomas 
R. Lounsbury, and Daniel C. Eaton, whose marriage with 
the sister of Gilman's wife made another close tie for him 
in New Haven. Professor, later President, Dwight was 
another warm friend on whom he could depend for sympa- 
thetic comprehension of his aims. 

Gilman was meeting Professor Brush daily at the New 
Haven House table and particularly enjoyed his company. 
With Whitney he had many points of contact, and as the 
years advanced the intercourse between their two families 
was frequent and intimate. 

There was a bowling club where the members met for 
exercise and amusement, which had for a time a very lively 
existence. There were rides with some, and with others 
there were walks in every direction over the wooded hills 
of the neighborhood. Pleasant memories were long re- 
tained by both Gilman and Whitney of an expedition on 
foot through Litchfield County, on which one night was 
spent with old Dr. Gold, one of the pioneers of scientific 
agriculture in this country. 

When Gilman entered upon his work as assistant libra- 
rian in the fall of 1856, the hours in which the library was 
open numbered only five, and while under obligation not to 
go on with the raising of funds for the Scientific School, he 
must have found the work insufficient to occupy the enter- 
prise and energy which he possessed in such abundant 
measure. These gifts were soon usefully employed in be- 
half of the town which he had adopted as his home. In 
October he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the New Haven 
Board of Education, and received the appointment of Act- 
ing School Visitor, which carried with it the small stipend 






NEW HAVEN 45 

of $450 (later $750). The duties and responsibilities of 
this position were somewhat undefined, but Gilman took 
up the work with his accustomed energy, and, before the 
three years in which he retained the post were over, had 
made it a place of such importance and influence in school 
matters that upon his retirement in 1859, when he urged the 
appointment of a man who could give all his time to the 
work, his suggestion was immediately adopted and the first 
Superintendent of Schools for New Haven appointed. 

From the first, Gilman's reports as Acting School Vis- 
itor read very differently from those of his predecessors; 
they are not only much fuller but show both a wider grasp 
of the principles underlying the subject of education, and a 
familiarity with the whole range of it not often found in 
a member of a school board. It was a period of develop- 
ment in the schools of New Haven; at that time but five 
of the twelve were graded schools — that is, schools in 
which each room contained only pupils of the same grade 
— the others being like our present country district schools, 
in which children of all ages and all attainments were taught 
by one teacher, or, in some cases, by two teachers, in the 
same room. The advantages of the graded schools were 
only imperfectly understood by the general public. Gilman 
saw their great superiority over the other system and made 
himself their champion. In 1859, " as an answer to inqui- 
ries frequently addressed to the writer respecting the best 
plan for organizing a system of graded schools," he pub- 
lished an article on the subject which was appended to his 
report of that year and published in pamphlet form by 
order of the Board of Education, who voted that the Super- 
intendent of Schools be directed to carry out its principles 
as far as possible. 

His first year In his new duties was interrupted by a trip 
to Europe in charge of a lad of seventeen years, with whom 



46 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

he visited England, France, Austria and Switzerland. He 
was also commissioned by the Prudential Committee, the 
committee in charge of the Yale library, to buy books for 
that institution. He sailed with his companion the middle 
of March, reaching London about eleven days later. Their 
stay in England was short, but during the few days they 
were there Gilman made an opportunity of calling on Charles 
Kingsley, who was at that time an object of the greatest 
admiration to all young Americans, and introduced himself 
as a Kingsley through his mother's family. He met with 
a cordial reception and had a delightful call. 

The following letter begins a correspondence which con- 
tinued during his trip in Europe and was resumed later, 
when Professor and Mrs. Dana themselves spent a year 
abroad: 

London, March 31, '57. 
My dear Mrs. Dana: 

A book must have a preface and a correspondence must 
have a beginning, even if there is nothing to say. I look 
forward with so much eagerness to the pleasure of hearing 
from friends in America that I am reporting as far as I 
can that I am safely here, although that is all I have to say. 
The Persia had a prosperous but not a short voyage, land- 
ing its passengers on Sunday afternoon just eleven days 
from New York. I found a few friends on the steamer, but 
the passage was quite without incident and my two days in 
London have been full of business details. On the Conti- 
nent my sight-seeing pleasures commence and then I shall 
hope for something fresh to tell. 

Mr. Dana will be glad to know that I bought and sent 
home a copy of Johnston's Physical Atlas. Please tell him 
that Blainville will cost not less than $200, which is more 
than the Yale Natural History Society placed in my hands. 

Pray give my kind greetings to all your three households 
and believe me to be with sincere regards for Mr. Dana and 
yourself 

Most truly yours, 

Daniel C. Gilman. 






NEW HAVEN 47 

Below are a few other letters written during this trip : 

Rome, May 7, '57. 
My dear Mrs. Dana: 

I intended before this to send you a leisurely written let- 
ter, for although I have been something of a traveler I have 
not yet learned to abandon the hope of writing less hurriedly 
than usual; but thus far on my journey the moments of re- 
pose not passed in sleep have not been many, and I have 
neglected, not forgotten, several promised epistles. . . . 

It is now three weeks since my arrival, a few days after 
Easter, but just in time to see the Easter illumination of St. 
Peter's, and the fire-works which were postponed for rea- 
sons that the public do not know. Much to my regret I 
found that most of our New Haven friends had already left 
for the more northern cities, the Salisburys, Whitneys, and 
Wheelers among the number. Dr. Welles and that part of 
his family still in Europe were here and have not yet gone, 
and as their rooms are close to mine in the Via Babuino, 
Piazza di Spagna, I find it very agreeable to take a New 
Haven cup of tea with them almost every evening. Last 
Sunday I met in the American Chapel my classmates, Ban- 
nard and Safford, the latter a particular friend. . . . 

Thus far the days have slipped away very quickly. The 
number of antiquities, museums, churches and palaces which 
" must be seen," the number of pictures and statues which 
one remembers always to have heard of, is so large that a 
month seems too short a time even for a general survey of 
the city. I have declined several invitations to visit in 
American families and have not sought admission to any 
Italian circles, for I find that the evenings are passed most 
agreeably in reading up about the sights of the passing or 
coming day. The acquaintances I have made among Italian 
gentlemen have some of them been very pleasant and 
serviceable. . . . 

One out of town excursion I have made which was very 
agreeable, to Hadrian's villa and Tivoli. The party con- 
sisted of Dr. Welles and his family, my two classmates, 
another American gentleman, and two English families. 
We left town at a very early hour, taking a picnic dinner 



4 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

in true New Haven style under the portico of the Temple 
of the Sibyl and within sight of the beautiful cascades. The 
ruins, the natural and artificial waterfalls, the singular views 
of the campagna with St. Peter's in the distance, distinctly 
visible eighteen miles away, combined to make the hills of 
Tivoli one of the most charming places I have ever seen. 
No one wonders after such an excursion as we have just 
made, at the strong expressions of delight which Horace 
and Virgil employed in speaking of the ancient Tibur. . . . 
From Rome I shall probably go by land to Naples, thence 
by steamer to Leghorn and by rail to Florence. Then I 
hope to proceed to Venice, the Tyrol, Vienna, Dresden, 
Munich and Switzerland. By that time I shall be quite 
ready to set my face homewards, indeed I should not be 
reluctant to reach New Haven by Commencement week, 
but of that there is no probability. . . . 

Vienna, June 8, '57. 
My dear Mrs. Dana : 

I arrived in this city on Saturday evening just in time 
to go to the bankers' and be disappointed at not finding 
there all the letters I had looked for. Bright and early this 
Monday morning on my way to present Mr. Dana's letter 
of introduction to Prof. Haidinger, I made enquiries again 
and found a large package of letters remailed to me from 
Italy. Among them was your welcome note of April 18th 
which gave me a chapter of New Haven news fresh and 
interesting. I wish I could believe all that you express about 
school matters and my connection with them. In the 
troubles of the Industrial School I sympathize but at this 
distance can do no more. It is quite right to say that our 
school law needs entire modification and I hope another 
year will secure suitable changes in many of its provisions. 

Since I wrote you last I have made a great change from 
the cities of the past to those of the present. Italy I enjoyed 
far more than I had reason to anticipate, but what can T 
say about it in a letter that has not been better said a hun- 
dred times already? Every excursion which I made near 
Naples reminded me of the geological lectures at New 
Haven and of the stones which your father and his party 



NEW HAVEN 49 

gave of their observations and adventures there a few years 
since. Beautiful as are the views near Naples, Florence 
would charm me more as a residence and Venice had greater 
fascinations to me as a traveler. We are (even as travelers 
in countries naturally beautiful) continually affected by the 
condition of the people and the character of the government. 
In these respects Naples seems to me the fag-end, not only 
of the Italian peninsula, but of the continent of Europe. 
Tyranny, corruption and misery raise their horrid heads at 
every corner. 

But I am dwelling on what you know already and what 
after all did not rob me of great enjoyment in the climate, 
the landscapes, and the flowers, the fruits, the arts and the 
antiquities which have there such peculiarly local charms. 
I hurried away from Florence before I was ready to leave, 
in order that I might see Venice in the light of a full moon. 
If I had waited to exhaust the Florentine attractions I 
should not now be here. The south may be pleasanter than 
the north in winter, but the south cannot have in winter the 
beauties of summer. By avoiding the noon-day sun every- 
thing in nature may be seen now to much greater advantage 
than in the cooler months and yet the professional tourists 
are bound toward the north. . . . 

Between Venice and this place there were two matters 
of interest, the great cave of Adelsberg which I penetrated 
for some two miles (visiting several new chambers which 
have only been known a short time), and the railroad over 
the Semmering Mountain, characterized by some English- 
man as " the most magnificent piece of folly " in engineering 
which was ever constructed. Of my stay here I shall write 
a line to Mr. Dana, and I will therefore only add in diplo- 
matic style, but not with diplomatic spirit, the renewed as- 
surances of my most sincere regards for you and all your 
family circle. 

To his sister: 

Florence, May 27, 1859. 
Dear Mollie: 

You would have enjoyed very much a visit I have made 
this evening at the house of my college friend Clarke, who 
invited me to meet Mr. Kinney, for several years American 

4 



5 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Minister in Turin, and Mr. Powers, the famous sculptor, 
and their families. There was no other company and I was 
fortunate enough to have a long conversation with both of 
these gentlemen. From the former, a person of great cul- 
ture, long resident in Italy, shrewd powers of observation 
and common sense, I derived much valuable information in 
respect to the condition of Italy and the relation of the dif- 
ferent states to one another and to the other states of 
Europe. Mr. Powers talked almost wholly on matters per- 
taining to art, and it was a rare treat to gather his opinions 
in an uninterrupted conversation of perhaps an hour and a 
half, all to myself. I brought him a somewhat special let- 
ter of introduction, which I presented yesterday in his 
studio. There he showed me all his works and gave me 
fully his conceptions. To-night our talk has been for the 
most part not personal but general. It began however with 
a reference to the injustice under which he is suffering from 
the wilful negligence of the late President to execute the 
resolution of Congress for the purchase of the statue of 
America. I will not here go into the particulars of what 
has seemed to me a great wrong ever since I learned, as I 
did some weeks ago, the facts pertaining to the order. 
From this he went on to talk upon one and another point 
connected with his profession, and you may value some of 
the chips which I picked up as he kept chiseling out his ideas. 
No great work, he said, was ever done quickly. Ghiberti 
was forty years at work upon his gates of Paradise in the 
Baptistery here, but every figure is a study. Some artists 
have executed a multitude of works, but all that have value 
were made in no hurry. A statue is nothing but a poem in 
marble. How long was Gray in writing his Elegy, Milton 
his Paradise Lost, Virgil the iEneid? Nothing can be per- 
fected in haste. People think that because Michael Angelo 
accomplished much he did not finish with care his produc- 
tions. This is not the case, every thing he completed he 
finished. Raphael executed many pictures, but his great 
works are few, and those elaborately perfected. " I have 
been censured for finishing too finely, working too slowly, 
but I am sure I am right. That little bust of Proserpine cost 
me many weeks of hard thought. I used to dream about 



NEW HAVEN 51 

it at night and work at it by day all of that time. ... It 
has been a great favorite and I know it will live. I have 
repeated it forty times, ten copies of it are in England, but 
if I had put it into marble when I had only the first general 
notion of the face, it would never have been remembered. 
Sometimes I work for a week on a portrait bust, and people 
think it is completed, but I must work another week and 
another week before I can be enough satisfied to let it go. 
Were I to execute a colossal statue, I should deem two years 
a little while for moulding the clay. Nothing that I do 
satisfies me and yet I know I do my best. Every new work 
gives me more pleasure than its predecessor, for I see that 
I have made an advance." 

" The great fault in teaching drawing is that the pupil 
is told to copy. This destroys his originality. He imitates 
his master's faults, he yields to his master's whims. The 
pupil should always, after learning how to make a straight 
line, draw from objects. If he is to make a painter he 
should learn to model. There is no method so good. In- 
struction should be given in mixing colors, perspective and 
so forth, but the pupil's best teachers are the works he sees 
around him and his own conceptions of what is beautiful 
and true." 

P. S. May 29. 

I wrote the above after returning from the visit which 
it records. Last night at the home of Mr. Powers, and to- 
night at the home of Mr. Kinney, I have had a similar treat. 
I have been quite charmed by Mrs. Kinney. She is a per- 
sonal friend of Mrs. Browning, and is evidently on terms 
of close intimacy with her. Mrs. Browning has just lost 
her father and has seen no one for weeks. Mrs. Kinney 
showed me a copy of Casa Guidi with the corrections of the 
authoress. She gave me a full account of Mrs. Browning's 
life, and especially of her acquaintance with Mr. Browning. 
I feel as though I had seen the poetess, indeed I feel better 
acquainted with her by far than if I had been merely in- 
troduced. I will tell you a great deal more when I see you. 
Good Bye. 

I am always affectionately yours, 

D. C. G. 



52 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

After his return from Europe Gilman was again ap- 
pointed Acting School Visitor of New Haven for the coming 
year, and continued to give much time to the duties con- 
nected with that office. In order to raise the standard in 
the higher rooms of the graded schools, he substituted for, 
or rather added to, the oral examinations held by various 
members of the school board at appointed and non-appointed 
times, written examinations held at the end of both spring 
and summer terms, which change, he says in his report, 
" has been most efficient in its influence upon both scholars 
and teachers." Each room was examined at a specified 
time, and reports were made upon the standing of the 
various classes, to the classes, to the teachers, and to the 
Board of Education. Commonplace as written examina- 
tions in our grammar schools seem at present, they were 
a great innovation in New Haven at the time, and did much 
to make it possible to compare the various schools and 
bring them up to the same grade of efficiency, an end which 
Gilman had steadily in view. This year also his committee 
laid out a course of studies to be pursued in the better graded 
schools, and designated the text-books to be used. 

A letter from him to his brother, written in January, 1858, 
shows a characteristic employment of his Christmas vaca- 
tion in New York: 

New Haven, January 11, 1858. 
My dear Edward : 

I received early last week your note of the fourth and 
one from father and mother, as well as from W. L. K. I 
have since heard more particularly from you. I am sorry 
that I could not visit Boston in the holidays, but my time 
will come again by and by. I had a pleasant time at home. 
I visited the galleries of pictures, spent a considerable time 
in the Astor, Mercantile and Society Libraries, went out to 
Bloomingdale and to Williamsburg, had the remarkable 
pleasure of looking leisurely over Mr. Beecher's fine collec- 
tion of prints, went on horseback to High Bridge with 



NEW HAVEN 53 

Times Raymond, Tribune Dana, History Bancroft, and 
Angular Davies: passed an evening at Mrs. Blatchford's, 
attended service at the notorious Santa Farina, and on an- 
other Sunday with more satisfaction at the Irvingite Chapel. 
I also heard some fine music and saw as much, in the intervals, 
of our home and Lizzie's as circumstances would permit. 

In 1858 Mr. Herrick resigned his post as college libra- 
rian in order to devote himself entirely to his work as col- 
lege treasurer, and Gilman was at once appointed to take 
his place. He had now been two years assistant in the 
library and was thoroughly conversant with the methods 
of carrying it on and buying the books, as well as with its 
practical needs. The library at this time, though far ad- 
vanced over the time of Mr. Gibbs, when it was only opened 
twice a week, was extremely limited in its facilities. The 
buildings consisted of one large hall for the college library 
proper, with two smaller halls for the Brothers and Lino- 
nian libraries connected with it by corridors on either side. 
These society libraries in earlier days had been a very im- 
portant factor in college life, and in 1840, according to the 
elder Professor Silliman, together outnumbered the college 
library proper by some eight thousand volumes. In the sum- 
mer time, when both halls could be used, the building gave 
ample room for both librarian and readers. In winter, 
however, when the main hall was utterly without heat, and 
only one of the corridors heated, this one room must serve 
both as workroom for librarian and assistant and as read- 
ing room for professor and student alike. 

The library was hampered in every way by lack of funds, 
and its utility was restricted by regulations that now seem 
ridiculous. The President, Fellows, members of faculties, 
graduates resident at college, members of the theological, 
medical and philosophical departments and Juniors and 
Seniors (the latter only on Mondays and Thursdays) were 



54 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

privileged to consult the library and take books out. The 
students in both graduate and undergraduate departments 
were obliged to pay for the use of books borrowed from the 
library, twelve cents for the term of two weeks or less for 
each folio or quarto volume, and six cents for an octavo or 
smaller volume. The library was to be kept open during 
five hours of each secular day in term time, except the public 
holidays and the week before Commencement. Gilman im- 
mediately began to plan various reforms which he had been 
turning over in his mind, and one of the first of these was 
to make a more even balance between the accessions of the 
theological and the scientific and literary departments. He 
employed an assistant, under the impression that such was 
the intention of the committee in charge, and at once began 
to keep the library open longer hours. 

Gilman's power of making everything that he studied and 
experienced contribute to his great central aim of education 
is well illustrated by the way in which he brought the interest 
in art inspired by his European trip into connection with his 
activity at Yale. In the spring of 1858 he was the leading 
spirit among a group of gentlemen who determined to get 
up a loan exhibition of works of art to commemorate the 
arrival of two marble statues, copies from the antique, 
ordered by the Linonian Society to adorn their hall. These 
statues were to be made in Rome under the superintendence 
of Mr. Bartholomew, but, owing to his death, did not arrive 
until the exhibition was over. The exhibition was held, 
however, and proved a notable event. Gilman was secre- 
tary of the committee and attacked the work with his accus- 
tomed energy, preparing the catalogue and writing it up in 
the papers. One of his friends, a member of the class just 
about to graduate, still remembers how Gilman provided 
him with a list of New York artists and persuaded him to 
go down and ask them if they would lend some of their pic- 



NEW HAVEN 55 

tures to the exhibition. " They could not understand why 
I wanted them, not being an artist, and some of them looked 
at me as if I were a monkey! " The result of this expedi- 
tion was not great; but owners of pictures in New York and 
Boston, and all through Connecticut, responded heartily 
to the invitation, and a collection of three hundred paint- 
ings and statues, and some fine engravings, was got together. 
The exhibition was open for two months, June and July, 
and a course of lectures was given in connection with it. 
Between six and seven thousand persons, not only from New 
Haven but from cities at a distance, visited the exhibition 
and the expenses, $2,074, which seemed an enormous sum 
at that time, were covered by the gate money. 

In an account of the exhibition, published by Gilman in 
the New Englander the next autumn, he says : 

The exhibition of paintings and statuary made in the 
Alumni Building of Yale College during the past summer 
was in many respects so unique as to merit more than a 
passing notice. 

It was a decided recognition on the part of the officers 
and friends of that institution that the fine arts may exercise 
an important influence upon the culture of college students 
and are deserving of careful attention during the progress 
of an academic course. The schools of New England have 
not been forward in making this acknowledgment, and 
aesthetic cultivation has by no means received that attention 
within their walls that has been bestowed upon other depart- 
ments of scholastic discipline. . . . 

The experiment of this gallery has shown that properly 
directed efforts may bring together a good collection of 
pictures and that the cost of the enterprise may be met by 
the usual charges for admittance. We believe that there 
are, scattered through New England, not to go beyond its 
borders, far more meritorious works of art than is gen- 
erally supposed to be the case. We are persuaded that 
half the time and labor which is expended on a cattle show 



S 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

might result, in almost any one of our larger towns, in an 
Art Exhibition not less attractive than the one of which we 
have told the story. Will not New Haven at an early day 
see a second exhibition? and will not other communities be 
excited to a kindred enterprise? . . . 

Is it not a natural consequence of the general neglect 
of aesthetic studies that so many of the educated classes of 
the community are painfully conscious that their apprecia- 
tion of the Beautiful has not kept pace with their love for 
the True and the Good? It is common to lament that in 
the masses of our countrymen there is so little love of the 
aesthetic; that our parks and promenades are so limited in 
extent and so bare both of natural beauty and artificial 
adornment; that our state houses and other public edifices 
are so frequently paste-board and stucco ; that our churches 
present such disgraceful sacrifices to the " lamp of Truth " 
in their wooden spires and pillars without, and their mere- 
tricious colonnades of fresco within. But all such lamenta- 
tions, just as they are, will have little effect till those who 
guide the public taste and sign the builders' contracts, till 
the influential members of ecclesiastical and political bodies, 
in other words, till educated men, yearly leaving our col- 
leges in companies of thousands, are well instructed in the 
principles of artistic, as well as of literary taste. 

Yale College has long enjoyed the distinction of being not 
only the first but the only college in the country to establish 
an art collection. It is greatly to be hoped that among the 
friends of the college some one interested in the Fine Arts 
will be encouraged to provide the means for the purchase of 
particular works or for the annual delivery of a course of 
lectures. We should rejoice to see in all our colleges success- 
ful efforts to secure the recognition of the Fine Arts as an 
important branch of academic discipline. 

Among the contributors to the collection was Augustus R. 
Street, and it may well be that his intercourse with Gilman 
in regard to the loan of his pictures had something to do 
with inspiring the idea which he carried out a few years 
later, of presenting an Art School to Yale College; for, as 



NEW HAVEN 57 

we shall see, he had Gilman associated with him on the 
building committee. 

In the autumn of 1859 Gilman was chosen a member of 
" the Club," of which he writes in his life of James Dwight 
Dana: "Another less formal association has been, for 
more than sixty years, a social gathering of intellectual men 
which has no other name than the Club. It meets at the 
houses of the members at frequent intervals for conversa- 
tion and discussion on science, politics and religion. Its 
earliest meetings were in 1838, and among its founders 
were: Dr. Leonard Bacon; President Woolsey; Professors 
Gibbs and Larned; Henry White, a well known lawyer; 
Dr. Henry J. Ludlow, a minister; and Dr. Henry A. Tom- 
linson, a physician. Professors Dana, William D. Whit- 
ney and George P. Fisher, all men of national distinction, 
were received in 1855." 

He was also a member of various learned societies at 
this time. He was an early member of the American Ori- 
ental Society, and a constant attendant at its meetings as 
well as at those of the Philological Society, the Connecticut 
Academy and the American Geographical Society. He 
made an address before the latter Society in January, 1872, 
on " Geographical Work in the United States during 1871." 
When in Berlin he had studied under Barth and Trendelen- 
burg and had published an article on " Barth and Living- 
stone in Central Africa" in May, 1858. He was keenly 
interested in all geographical matters, and during the years 
he lived in New Haven contributed many geographical 
notices to the American Journal of Science and Arts, as well 
as various longer articles on kindred topics to other peri- 
odicals. 1 These studies led very naturally to his appoint- 

1 The value and unusual merit of these articles on Geography in the 
American Journal is attested by the letter written to Mr. Gilman by the 
eminent geographer, Petermann, when he learned who the author was. 
See Chapter VI. p. 371. 



5 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ment later as Professor of Physical and Political Geography 
in the Sheffield Scientific School. 



To his brother: 

New Haven, December 2, 1858. 

Dear Edward: 

I forget whether I mentioned to you that I had been 
chosen a member of " the Club," in whose discussions there 
has usually been so much life and spirit. I attended a meet- 
ing last night for the first time at Dr. Dutton's, the subject 
being Sawyer's Revision. About five and twenty persons 
were present, including two or three strangers. The Presi- 
dent opened, and the Rabbi followed, while Bishop Bacon 
and a host of lesser dignitaries kept up a running fire. A 
great many sharp speeches were made and many good stories 
were told which cannot be repeated in a letter, but, in the 
serious discussion, poor Mr. Reviser was treated without 
mercy. . . . You would have enjoyed the whole discussion, 
especially the incidental remarks which were made by vari- 
ous persons on the popular desire for and against revision. 

I have had a letter from Professor Guyot formally pro- 
posing to me to begin with him the preparation of geogra- 
phies and I intend to accept and so shall decline the other 
propositions about which we conferred. . . . 

We shall all be interested in hearing from you in Bangor 
and shall continue to wish you prosperity in your new 
undertakings. 

New Haven, December 10, 1858. 

Dear Edward : 

. . . There was another club meeting last night, Wednes- 
day. Subject, President Buchanan's message. It was . a 
less entertaining and instructive discussion than the previous. 
Two weeks hence, at Professor Salisbury's, Dr. Bushnell's 
new book is to be considered. Professor Porter opens. It 
promises well. 

I lectured in Cheshire last evening to about three hun- 
dred people. I have nothing new from Professor Guyot. 



NEW HAVEN 59 

New Haven, February 2, 1859. 
My dear Edward : 

... I was much interested in the printed accounts of 
your installation and in Professor Shepard's historical sketch 
of the church. All New Haven is skate-crazy. Hundreds 
go to Saltonstall, clergymen (Dutton, Fisher, Littlejohn 
&c.) ; college professors (Salisbury, Whitney, &c.) ; tutors, 
lawyers, ladies, school boys, all join the fun. One day last 
week we had a flood followed by good skating. The news- 
paper said, " what need of travel? We have in New Haven 
on one day the pleasures of Venice, on the next those of 
St. Petersburg." 

Gilman had now given up his rooms and was living with 
his cousin, William L. Kingsley, editor of the New Eng- 
lander, who had married in 1857. He writes to his brother 
in February: " I have re-arranged with William. I am to 
dine at five thirty o'clock, solus cum solo, and pay propor- 
tionally. This gives me from one to three, daily, quiet in 
the library and adds full two hours to my working day. It 
will cost me more a good deal, but the outlay will be less 
than if I had taken a house, as I was on the point of doing." 

His interest in religious and church matters, in which he 
was in complete sympathy with his brother, is shown by the 
following letter: 

New Haven, June 6, 1859. 
My dear Edward : 

I was not unmindful of the event to be commemorated, 
and mentally wished " many happy returns " to Julia and 
yourself. . . . 

I like the drift of your discourse. I have thought at dif- 
ferent times a good deal on the subject and agree with all 
you say. I think that the Masonic and kindred clubs are 
joined by church members because the church does not pro- 
vide that social sympathy that is demanded. I have always 
delighted in the accounts of the lives of early Christians 
given by Neander, Schaff and so forth in their histories ; by 



60 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Wiseman, Mailand, Northcote and so forth in their Cata- 
comb books. Even Bulwer in the " Last Days of Pompeii," 
gives vividly a glimpse of early Christians. Our benevolent 
societies, our secular " un-sectarian " schools, our alms- 
houses and hospitals, severed from religious influences, 
divert our church power. I don't believe the world will go 
back to the early days, but I think that ought not to prevent 
more fellowship than is now exhibited. But it is not easy, 
or rather it is too easy, to write letters on this subject. We 
must have a talk on it, after the Norwich celebration. 

During the summer of 1859 Gilman prepared an histori- 
cal address to be delivered at his native town, Norwich, on 
September 7, 1859, at the bi-centennial celebration of its 
settlement. The address was received with great interest, 
and was published first in a volume giving a full account of 
the celebration and later by itself with full notes, including 
some original documents which had never previously seen 
the light, and a complete index. In his concluding note he 
says: " I cannot refrain from saying that the interest which 
I feel in the history of Norwich is inherited. While it is 
pleasant for me to trace, on my mother's side, a descent 
from several of the original settlers of the town, my father's 
enthusiasm in historical inquiries is associated with my 
earliest recollections and has constantly assisted my recent 
investigations." 

In his school report this year Gilman is able to announce 
the establishment of a High School in New Haven. The 
Board of Education had been authorized to buy a lot and 
erect a schoolhouse, suitable for the accommodation of eight 
hundred pupils or more, but after a long search no location 
could be found that commanded the approval of all the 
Board. While matters dragged on in this way, schools 
were overcrowded in the lower grades, many children being 
turned away, while the rooms containing the upper grades 
— the schools were supposed to teach children from the age 



NEW HAVEN 61 

of six to sixteen — were comparatively empty. With his 
characteristic energy and inventiveness, Gilman suggested 
turning the highest grade rooms into primary ones and hir- 
ing others for a High School in the center of the town. 
This plan was followed, and was immediately justified by 
results. Gilman well says: " It is a fit subject of congratu- 
lation that, without wasting years in talk, without incurring 
great expense, and with increased advantages and accommo- 
dations in the primary schools, we have organized a High 
School which cannot fail to be an advantage to all classes in 
the community, especially to the poor, who can afford to 
spend time in acquiring an education, but who cannot, in 
addition to the school tax, pay for costly tuition." There 
had also been established a school for special cases, — " chil- 
dren who could not conform to the strict regulations of 
most of the public schools, and who are exposed to habits 
of vice and crime." Gilman had urged the establishment 
of such a school in his first report, believing that many of 
the children, after a few months of special preliminary 
training, would take places in the regular schools without 
injury to others and with credit to themselves. 

He was instrumental in bringing about other important 
improvements, one of which was the consolidation of the 
three school terms into one school year, appointments being 
made for the year. He inaugurated the practice of keeping 
a regular office hour when inquiries could be made and busi- 
ness transacted in reference to the schools; and on the basis 
of his practice as a beginning, urged the necessity of the 
appointment of a competent man whose duty it would be 
to devote his whole attention to the supervision of the 
schools. This recommendation, as has already been stated, 
resulted in the appointment of a Superintendent of Schools. 

The pamphlet on the " Idea of a Graded School," pub- 
lished about this time, contains much that is a commonplace 



62 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

to us, but which in those days needed explanation and re- 
iteration. Such, for example, was the term " graded 
school." Ignorance of the meaning of these words, as well 
as prejudice against the idea they stand for, has now disap- 
peared from our schools throughout the length and breadth 
of the land. But there were also some recommendations 
put forward in the article that have not yet fully established 
themselves. He urged the necessity of a definite progres- 
sive course of study. " There is a most important field of 
inquiry, as yet but little examined in this country, concern- 
ing the relative importance of different branches of study 
and the amount of time to be given to each. To a very 
great extent neither teachers nor committees have a definite 
idea what sort of an education they are providing. They 
are working on no plan. . . . The progress of the scholar 
is continually retarded by having to go over and over again, 
as he advances from one room to another, what should have 
been mastered once for all. The text books provided are in 
part at fault, the lower books continually anticipating the 
higher, and the higher of course repeating the lower." This 
condition still prevails to a considerable extent in our public 
schools. He says further: " In selecting the studies we 
must continually remember that the object of the school is 
not to make learned boys, but strong men; not smart girls, 
but sensible women; . . . The pupil's judgment, his mem- 
ory, his imagination, his accuracy of statement and clearness 
of thought should all be cultivated. ... It is indispensable 
to a model school that all the scholars in each room should 
attend to the same exercises at the same time. The teacher 
should spend most of the school hours in teaching; not in 
seeing if the scholars can repeat the page by rote, but in 
showing them how to understand the words of an author or 
the facts of a lesson; not in teasing them with unnecessary 
questions, but in leading them to discover truth for them- 



NEW HAVEN 63 

selves, and to express their ideas in discriminating language; 
in a word, to train their minds to habits of clear thought and 
wise judgment." " Here," he says, " is the key to German 
success in all matters of education." And lastly, a good 
graded school must have a competent master. There must 
be a chief in each schoolhouse who shall have power to 
direct all the assistant teachers, and who shall be held re- 
sponsible for their failings, and such a man should be well 
paid. 

The question of the curriculum adapted to children be- 
tween the ages of six and twelve was one on which Gilman 
thought much, and in February, i860, he delivered an ad- 
dress on this subject before the common-school visitors of 
the county, and the common-school teachers of the city, of 
New Haven, which is strikingly modern in its ideas. He 
again complains of the useless repetition whereby the dull 
scholars become perfected in their indolence and the bright 
scholars grow weary with endless repetition; and again 
asserts that in the public school system two objects are to be 
accomplished: " the first and most important is to train the 
mind, make men out of boys, to educate the judgment, the 
reason, the memory, the imagination; and the second and 
subordinate object is to convey such knowledge to the scholar 
as may be useful to him in life." He is confident that if, 
from the outset, thorough instruction were given upon a well 
digested plan, all that is now taught in our graded schools 
could be mastered with perfect ease, in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, before the pupil had attained his thirteenth 
year. A course of study should be planned, he says, not 
only with reference to those who are to pass a number of 
years in acquiring knowledge, but also with regard to those 
whose opportunities are so limited that two or three years 
will include all their days of school instruction. 

The points insisted on as to the course are that the Eng- 



64 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

lish language should be the chief study of the common 
school, since no one can be a good thinker without a good 
command of language; that the eye should be trained to 
habits of close observation; that the simple study of geo- 
metrical figures should be included; that the hand should 
be disciplined not only to simple penmanship but to elemen- 
tary drawing; that in the lower rooms such works as Dr. 
Hooker's " Child's Book of Nature " and in the higher 
rooms the elements of natural philosophy should be taught; 
that in the higher classes the study of history should 
be associated with that of geography; and that, while in 
our public schools religious instruction cannot be provided, 
there can be and should be a thorough course of teaching 
in morals. Speaking of the culture of the voice, he makes 
the important but perhaps hardly successful recommenda- 
tion that more important than the cultivation of singing 
would be a culture which should eradicate the nasal tones 
and harsh accents too common in New England. 

Professor Dana's health had become seriously impaired, 
and he and Mrs. Dana were to spend the following win- 
ter in Europe. This closed for Gilman a house where 
he had been received almost as a member of the family; 
but the friendship was kept up by letters which give us occa- 
sional glimpses of his life during the year. 

To his brother: 

New Haven, October 5, 1859. 
My dear Edward : 

I am very glad to hear of your prosperous return. The 
recollection of your visit and of all the good events of this 
autumn will not soon disappear. The great thing now on 
our minds is the departure of the Danas, appointed as you 
know for Saturday. The Avenue is busy with the prepara- 
tions, the excitement and interest extending beyond the home 
on the triangle [the Danas' house]. I mean to go to New 
York to see the party fairly off. Oddly enough I had an 



NEW HAVEN 65 

offer today of expenses and so forth, if I would go for a 
year. But I did not dare consider it. I am afraid that if I 
had I should have accepted it. The President dissented 
from my going to Wisconsin and of course he would to a 
European tour, and as I am not prepared to cut entirely the 
cords which bind me here, I remain. . . . 

The Norwich volume is going rapidly on. I shall spend 
next Sunday at home. With much love, 

Affectionately yours, 

D. C. G. 

New Haven, December 6, 1859. 
My dear Mrs. Dana : 

. . . We had a lecture from Mr. Beecher on Monday, 
and the next morning he came to the College Library for 
the express purpose of seeing Mr. Dana's Zoophytes and 
Crustacea, which he examined plate for plate with a degree 
of enthusiasm which would have gratified the Professor him- 
self. " Well," said he, when he rose from his chair, " I 
wish Dana would come and live in my house and let me 
pump him." I have had a late letter from Mr. Guyot, 
who sends a greeting " to our excellent friends in Europe." 
... I have begun a course of six lectures on geography to 
be given once a week in the Normal School at New Britain. 
The whole school (120 scholars) attend and the High 
School besides. 

The papers will show you how the whole land has been 
excited about John Brown. Insane as his effort was, his 
whole conduct since his arrest has been noble, and has 
elicited the admiration of friend and foe. 

I have not time to add more except my regards to Mr. 
Dana. 

Meanwhile, and ever, I am sincerely yours, 

D. C. Gilman. 

January 20, i860. 
My dear Mrs. Dana : 

Your most acceptable letter of December 2 reached me 
on Christmas Monday when all the family were assembled 
at my sister's home in New York. . . . My own plans have 

5 



66 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






been upset lately, I might say " the quarterly upset " has 
returned. I am invited to go to New York as an editor of a 
new daily journal to be established with an immense capital, 
strong supporters, and every prospect of success. I am 
tempted not alone by the pecuniary considerations, which 
are important, but by the prospect of usefulness in a wide 
sphere which the proffered position holds out. The depart- 
ment which I should have charge of would be what I most 
prefer, the relation of foreign countries to our own, not 
only European but all others, in which I should hope to 
make available all my geographical studies. In home mat- 
ters I should have the oversight of what is said on Social 
questions, meaning by that educational, higher and lower, 
public institutions, charity, pauperism, vagrancy, crime and 
so forth. Do you wonder that I listen, especially when in 
addition to handsome compensation I have an interest in 
the stock, which promises to be very profitable. How 
many days I have wished that Mr. Dana were here and well, 
to help me form a judgment whether or not I ought to ac- 
cept. He has advised me so often and so well that I sigh 
in vain for his opinion now. I hardly dare to encounter the 
proposed responsibilities and do not think I shall say yes. 
I have accordingly told none of the college officers except 
Professor Noah Porter, who will not advise me either way. 

I felt obliged to mention the matter to Mr. Guyot on 
account of the engagement which I have with him. I 
should like to send you his letter. " In all cases of doubt," 
he concludes, " I make it a rule to pray that if I choose the 
wrong path, I may be admonished in it and God never fails 
to do so " ! 

I meant to have visited Washington in the vacation but 
concluded to remain in New York, where the holidays 
slipped quickly away. . . . 

Our bachelor company at the table, Mr. Bakewell, Dr. 
Hubbard, Mr. Fisher, and Mr. Brush would join in a mes- 
sage, I am sure, if they knew I was writing . . . but as I 
cannot go in search for them you must accept for Mr. D. 
and yourself the kindest regards and best wishes of 

Yours very sincerely, 

D. C. G. 



NEW HAVEN 67 

The editorial position referred to in this letter was pre- 
sumably on the New York World, which was being pro- 
jected at this time. On mature consideration of the sub- 
ject Gilman decided to remain at his post at Yale. The 
following letter is to his classmate, Professor Jacob Cooper, 
who was at this time professor of Greek at Centre College, 
Danville, Kentucky, and later held the same post at Rut- 
gers. The correspondence, though not frequent, continued 
throughout their lives. 

To Professor Cooper: 

New Haven, January 26, i860. 
My dear classmate : 

I have been very glad to receive your letter and to learn 
so much of your welfare. As to personal news there is noth- 
ing to mention. I am fixed for the present in the library, 
contented and happy, yet not certain that I shall always be 
willing to lead a life of such retirement from scenes of pub- 
lic excitement. . . . My father is quite well, still active in 
business and benevolence, living in New York and sur- 
rounded by all of his children except my brother Edward 
and myself. Your friends about college are all well. No- 
body is appointed in Professor Olmsted's place. Chapin 
succeeds nicely, Professor Hadley's Greek grammar is not 
out; it is going through the press and will appear in the 
summer. . . . 

Let me hear from you again and believe me as ever, 

Your friend sincerely, 

D. C. Gilman. 

New Haven, January 26. 
February 14, i860. 
My dear Mrs. Dana : 

... I am exceedingly interested in all you say of the 
political circumstances of Tuscany, for although the Italian 
[situation] is the chief topic of the European news of each 
steamer, yet the general observations of the newspapers do 
not give us half so vivid pictures of the state of society as 



68 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

are contained in your fresh personal observations. Not 
many signs of liberty will you see in the Kingdom of the Two 
Sicilies, I '11 engage. I am afraid that the boot of Italy will 
long be out of toes. . . . What can I tell you of home news 
which you have not already heard from more frequent cor- 
respondents? That all the world is divided into two classes; 
those who attend the Agricultural lectures, and those who 
do not? If you have n't heard from a score of writers how 
successful has been Mr. Porter's Farmers' Course, you may 
be sure the echoes of congratulation will not have faded 
away before you return. One hundred and fifty or more 
students from out of town, three lectures a day, frequent 
discussions, reports in the Times and the Tribune and all the 
lesser luminaries, are among the indications of popularity 
and usefulness. 

Or shall I tell you that all the world is divided into those 
who belong to the Kingdom of Hohenzollern-Etwas, or 
those who do not? In other words that the stated and oc- 
casional residents of the Triangle have caught a German 
fever and are communicating it to all who are not exempted 
by having had it before. . . . 

As for the library, matters move on quietly enough. 
Macy's dying gifts to the college, his excellent series of Ger- 
man commentaries on the Bible, came to hand yesterday. 
The newspaper project mentioned in my last letter has not 
taken such shape as to appear to me attractive. Professor 
Guyot discourses on his friend Ritter before the Geograph- 
ical Society in New York this week, and I go down to hear 
him. Brush and I sit by one another at the dinner table and 
meet besides at the Bowling Alley, so that we are, as you 
say, quite familiar friends. I esteem him more and more. 

With the kindest regards to Mr. Dana I remain, as ever, 

Yours very truly, 

D. C. G, 

The course of lectures mentioned in this letter was one 
instituted in New Haven in February, i860, by Professor 
J. A. Porter. The great and growing interest in science, 
and particularly in agricultural chemistry, with its close 



NEW HAVEN 69 

relations to the fertilization of the soil, made this a very 
timely affair, and Porter had collected together as lecturers 
a much greater number of eminent men than had ever been 
gathered before for such a purpose. The attendance was 
large; it was estimated that five hundred persons attended 
the course, and the lectures were of the utmost importance 
in influencing the progress of agricultural science in this 
country. Their fame was spread abroad and was largely 
instrumental in securing the Land Grant money for the 
Sheffield Scientific School. 

In October, i860, after being at the head of the Yale 
Library for two years, Gilman published an article in the 
University Quarterly, giving an historical sketch of the li- 
brary with a list of such of the books, originally donated by 
the ten ministers of the gospel, as could be identified at the 
time of President Stiles, in 1784, and an account of the 
various bequests made to it since its first foundation and of 
the income derived from them. The building was also de- 
scribed minutely and the books enumerated, amounting to 
67,000, including the society libraries, with 7,000 unbound 
pamphlets in addition. A description was also given of the 
various treasures of the library in books, coins and inscrip- 
tions. The result of his browsing among these books and 
pamphlets is shown later by an article on the archaeological 
collection of the library, and his address at the celebration 
of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding 
of Yale College, as well as by two articles on Bishop 
Berkeley, published in 1865. He became very much inter- 
ested in Bishop Berkeley and his romantic voyage, ending 
in his generous gifts to the college and its library; and not 
only in his inaugural address at the University of California, 
but in his letters and other later utterances, we find him 
using the Bishop as an illustration and example. He was 
also engaged at this time on the revision of Webster's 



7o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 



Dictionary under the editorship of Professor Noah 
Porter. 

The spring brought with it the breaking out of the Civil 
War, and was a period of intense excitement in New Haven 
as it was everywhere. In April there were two regiments in 
camp at different points near the city, and numerous other 
companies were constantly drilling on the green. Gilman 
was one of those most active in organizing the " Norton 
Cadets," a company composed of members of the faculty 
and graduates, of which Professor Norton was the captain 
and Gilman the recruiting sergeant. Gilman was sufficiently 
interested in this company to have always preserved his lists 
as recruiting sergeant and records of attendance at the drills. 
The strong patriotic feeling which kept him alive to every 
event of the Civil War finds little expression in his letters, 
but its influence was felt by others. One of these, a captain 
in a Connecticut regiment, declares that a long talk with 
Gilman was what finally decided him to ask for his com- 
mission in spite of the disapproval of some of his family. 
He still remembers with gratitude the frequent luncheons 
at Gilman's home, while he was living in a tent on the green 
and recruiting his company, and the inspiration which this 
frequent association with his host was to him. 

In 1 86 1 Gilman became engaged to Miss Mary Ketcham, 
an intimate friend of his two younger sisters and a daughter 
of Treadwell Ketcham, Esquire, a New York merchant. 
They were married in December, and began housekeeping 
at once in the home of his cousin, Henry Kingsley, on Hill- 
house Avenue, Mr. Kingsley being in Europe for the winter. 

The Morrill Land Bill was introduced into Congress in 
1857 and passed for the first time in 1859, Dut was vetoed 
by Buchanan. In January, 1862, the bill was again intro- 
duced, passed both houses in June, and was signed by Lin- 



. 



NEW HAVEN 71 

coin July second of the same year. This act, entitled " An 
Act donating Public Lands to the Several States and Terri- 
tories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agri- 
culture and the Mechanic Arts," was one of momentous 
significance to the cause of scientific education in the United 
States. All through the first part of the century the " new 
education " had been a burning subject of discussion, and 
before 1840 many industries had been completely revolu- 
tionized by science. Between 1840 and 1850 all the larger 
colleges of the land took up the question of the possibility 
and desirability of including the teaching of science in their 
programs. With the aid of chemistry, agriculture was 
rapidly advancing, and the theory of fertilizers was then 
first brought before the country. Liebig's " Familiar Letters 
on Chemistry," published in a cheap form and widely read, 
changed the theory of agriculture throughout the civilized 
world. Senator Morrill had followed the course of events 
and realized the need and demand for scientific education; 
and feeling that the public lands were rapidly passing out 
of the hands of the nation without bringing any appreciable 
benefit to the people, he had determined to try to secure 
some part of the profits from their sale for the establish- 
ment of schools of science in the various states of the 
country. He felt that, while primary and secondary schools 
could and would be provided for locally, this higher scien- 
tific education should be the care of the nation. When the 
bill finally passed and land scrip was issued to the several 
states in proportion to their representation, the states were 
obliged to pass laws accepting the scrip. It was at once seen 
by the friends of the Yale Scientific School how advanta- 
geous it would be to secure the income for that institution. 
The amount coming to Connecticut was so small that it 
would have done little towards founding a new school, while, 
on the other hand, the Scientific School was already equipped 



72 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

with building and apparatus; and the state would have 
lost the land grant if the school had not contracted with 
it to maintain such courses of scientific instruction as carried 
out the intent of the Morrill Act. 

Professors Brush, Porter and Gilman went up to Hart- 
ford and appeared before the Legislature, and finally a bill 
was passed in May, 1863, accepting the scrip and devoting 
the interest wholly to the " department of Yale College 
known as the Sheffield Scientific School, for the mainte- 
nance of such courses as (including the courses of instruc- 
tion already instituted in said school) shall carry out the 
intent of said Act of Congress in the manner specially pre- 
scribed by the fourth section of said Act." 

The money coming in just at this time, though small in 
amount, was of great importance to the Scientific School. 
It was withdrawn after thirty years, but it had helped to 
carry the school through a most critical period. Gilman put 
forth all his powers to secure the grant for the Scientific 
School, and he was one of those selected to represent its 
interests in Washington nine years later in connection with 
an additional grant of national land, as will presently ap- 
pear. His relations with Senator Morrill were of the pleas- 
antest. When the Senator visited New Haven in 1867 in 
order to examine the first institution which had put into 
actual use the funds derived from the bill he had done so 
much to further, he stayed at Gilman's house, and met there 
several of the Governing Board, who were eager to ques- 
tion him concerning the causes that had led him to present 
the bill. A few notes preserved by Professor Brewer bring 
vividly before us the evening's conversation. 

Senator Morrill said that the South had, as a rule, op- 
posed the measure, on the plea that it was " class legisla- 
tion," that it discriminated in favor of the farming class, 
their fear being that it might lead to the education of the 



NEW HAVEN 73 

negro. He said that Slidell had persuaded Buchanan to 
veto it. He himself did not intend the schools to be merely 
agricultural schools; that title was not his but was given 
by the clerk who engrossed the bill. He did not intend it 
for class legislation, for farmers alone; he wished the teach- 
ing of science to be the leading idea, and instanced the vast 
importance of this to the manufacturers of New England. 
He expected the schools to be schools of science; not classi- 
cal colleges, but colleges rather than academies or high 
schools. The bill was very carefully planned so that both 
old-established colleges and newly organized ones might 
use the fund. 

Morrill said that the clause relating to military instruc- 
tion was not in the original bill, but was introduced into the 
second bill because the advantage of the South over the 
North at the beginning of the war was attributed to the 
numerous military schools there, and it was thought that 
at least one college in each state should teach military 
subjects. 

The funds secured through the land grant enabled the 
governing board at once to appoint three new professors, 
and it was at this time that Gilman's status was changed 
from one dependent on the fees of students to a regular 
professorship with salary, though the salary still was pro- 
portional to the number of courses given. He was ap- 
pointed professor of Physical Geography in 1863. 

During his later years Gilman's educational work became 
so entirely that of an organizer and executive head that his 
success as a teacher is apt to be forgotten. He taught for 
nine years in the Scientific School, giving courses in physical 
and political geography and in history, and later in political 
economy. He was always an inspiring teacher, enthusiastic, 
interested in his students and they in him. Mr. Houston 



74 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Lowe of Dayton, Ohio, a member of the Select Course 
of the class of 1869, gives the following impression of him 
as a teacher: 

I was of those of the class of 1869 who took what is 
known as the " Select Course." It has always been my 
thought that Professor Gilman was the founder of this 
course, the underlying principle being that it should afford 
" youngsters " ample discipline and at the same time fit them 
for social and business life. 

Professor Gilman was, I think, a great teacher. He 
seemed to care little for the words of the text books used by 
his classes, but much for the spirit of them, and by his per- 
sonality and sound idealism endeavored to stimulate his 
pupils to purity of thought and action. 

Before we parted at Commencement time, he gave to 
each of us a list of the books we " ought to own." Although 
I have lost my list, as a young man about all of the books 
he named to us were purchased and they have been a re- 
minder of him and his work at frequent periods of my life. 

Professor Gilman had not only a well trained mind, but 
a big heart, and, greater than all, something in him that 
made for righteousness. This is but a poor attempt to ex- 
press appreciation of one who did much for me. 

To Professor Cooper: 

New Haven, April 8, '64. 
My dear Cooper: 

I have long been wanting to hear from you and have sent 
you more than one note since I have had a line from you; 
but I presume that in the disturbed state of your neighbor- 
hood some of the mails have miscarried. Did you ever 
receive the Class Record published in 1862 and the sup- 
plementary note which followed last autumn? . . . 

I am moved to write to you by perusing your excellent 
article in the Danville Review. I have all along rejoiced 
in the vigorous loyalty of that journal and have felt not a 
little satisfaction in knowing that you were one of the con- 
ductors of its pages. This pleasure was increased by your 
comments on the questions of the hour. You patriots of 






NEW HAVEN 75 

Kentucky have had a hard battle to fight, but you are fight- 
ing bravely and I trust will win a complete victory. I ap- 
preciate especially the difficulty which arises from the in- 
fluence of truly loyal men who not only justify, but prefer, 
a state of society in which Slavery is established; but I 
think that such articles as yours will prepare the way for a 
change in this preference, and I sincerely hope that before 
another month of our rapid history has passed, we shall find 
Kentucky side by side with Missouri and Maryland in the 
effort to eradicate forever the only plea for disunion. 

Have you ever heard of my father's death, which occurred 
early last June at the age of 68 ? It was a severe blow from 
which as a family we have not begun to recover. 

Ever your friend, sincerely, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

It was during this year that Augustus R. Street gave a 
fund to establish an Art School in connection with Yale Col- 
lege, and Gilman was associated with him on the building 
committee. As we have seen, Gilman felt strongly the de- 
sirability of giving the students in our American colleges 
some opportunity for the study of art, and deplored the lack 
of all aesthetic cultivation other than that of literature in 
their education. He was appointed a member of the council 
in charge of the affairs of the school, and from the begin- 
ning took a keen interest in all the details of its work, first 
in the architect's plans and in the exercises for the laying 
of the corner-stone, and later in the organization of the 
school, the raising of money necessary to its larger endow- 
ment, and the successful workings of the school generally. 
He was chairman of a committee to organize a second Loan 
Exhibition in 1867, the first in the new building, which was 
as successful as the former one had been. 



Mr. Gilman's struggle to improve the almost incredibly 
unsatisfactory conditions prevailing in the Yale Library 



76 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

must have formed one of the most discouraging experiences 
of his life; and after nine years of this kind of effort, he 
resigned the post in 1865. The nature of those conditions 
may be inferred from the mention of a few circumstances 
in a paper which he prepared for presentation to the Cor- 
poration in 1862. He pointed out that the entire lack of 
heat in winter, except for a small stove in one of the cor- 
ridors, made the large room uninhabitable for six months 
of the year, besides causing great injury to the books by the 
consequent dampness and mould, and he made the modest 
request that a small room belonging to a student society 
which had ceased to exist be warmed and set apart as a 
quiet and retired place for reading and study; he also re- 
quested that he be relieved of the burden of paying out of 
his own meager salary for the services of an assistant whom 
he had found it necessary to employ in order to keep the 
Library open a proper number of hours and in a proper 
state of efficiency. On showing this paper to President 
Woolsey he was informed that it would be useless to ap- 
proach the Corporation on either of these points, and the 
paper was not presented. Nevertheless, in 1864, and again 
in February, 1865, he drew up statements urging the imper- 
ative need of improvement and expansion for the Library. 
In view of the complete failure of his most modest requests 
it is evidence of no little courage that in the last of these 
papers he should have set forth a list of things requisite to 
be done if the Yale Library was to maintain or recover its 
proper rank relatively to other institutions, closing his state- 
ment with the following appeal : 

For all these purposes we need to raise at least $100,000; 
$200,000 would not be too large a sum. To secure this 
amount we must appeal to enlightened friends of learning 
and especially to the pride and the interests of New Haven. 
The Library is the home of all our scholars, whatever their 



NEW HAVEN 77 

creed, residence, education or political principles. It is 
freely opened to all who wish to consult it without the 
slightest charge. The number who thus make use of it has 
already transcended our powers to accommodate, or our 
ability to supply the wants which the college and the library 
have created. The want is pressing. In scarcely any direc- 
tion would an expansion of the college resources be so use- 
ful to the interests of learning, and the attractiveness of 
New Haven as a residence for literary men. 

The lack of response to all his efforts for reform and 
progress in library matters, and the inability of the author- 
ities to see the necessity of change, tried Gilman's very soul. 
He was never able to work where he could see no progress 
and where the attainment of his ideal seemed utterly im- 
possible. When, in the autumn of 1864, he found that the 
salaries of all the other officers of the college had been 
raised, that of the librarian being alone excepted, this dis- 
covery added just enough to his discouragement to practi- 
cally decide him to throw up his position and devote himself 
to other things. After a thorough consideration of the 
situation, resulting in the confirmation of his feelings con- 
cerning it, he sent in his resignation, June I, 1865, in the 
following letter to President Woolsey: 

My dear Sir: 

I presume it will not take you wholly by surprise to learn 
that I desire to be released from the office of College Libra- 
rian. I have come to this conclusion with hesitation and re- 
gret, but the truth is that after nine years' service in this 
capacity, I am quite discouraged. 

Improvements and changes which have long been talked 
of as essential to the progress of the library, the increase of 
the funds for the purchase of books, the employment of per- 
manent assistance, the introduction of a heating apparatus, 
the opening of a quiet reading room, the consolidation of 
the Society Libraries, and other minor alterations, seem to 
be no nearer than when I entered on the office of Librarian. 
I am aware that the poverty of the college is a standing 



7 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

reason for the delay of improvements, but this does not 
lessen my disappointment. 

Moreover I am not able to support a family on the salary 
paid to the librarian, especially with the reduction in it, 
which I have felt compelled to make ever since my appoint- 
ment, for the payment of an assistant. I am under the con- 
stant necessity of seeking other employment to meet my 
current expenses. 

On the other hand attractive and remunerative occupa- 
tions of a literary character are continually offering them- 
selves for which I long to secure the necessary time. When 
I add to these considerations, that my health has already 
suffered and physicians remind me frequently that it will be 
still more impaired by continued exposure to the cold and 
dampness which prevail in the library much of the year, — 
I think you cannot wonder at my proposed withdrawal. 

Will you therefore do me the favor to present my resigna- 
tion of the office of librarian to the Corporation of the Col- 
lege at their next meeting. 

I trust it is unnecessary for me to assure you of my un- 
diminished interest in the college and my sincere desire to 
promote its welfare. I am, dear Sir, 

Very respectfully yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

President Woolsey says, in his reply, that the leading 
reason in Gilman's mind does not appear to him to be a 
sufficient one, and that there is no likelihood of any change 
being made on that point, and continues: 

In regard to your leaving your place my thoughts have 
shaped themselves thus: the place does not possess that im- 
portance which a man of active mind would naturally seek; 
and the college cannot, now or hereafter, while its circum- 
stances remain as they are, give it greater prominence. 
With the facilities which you possess of making your way 
in the world, you can in all probability secure for yourself, 
while yet young and enterprising, a more lucrative, a more 
prominent and a more varied, as well as stirring employ- 
ment. I feel sure that you will not long content yourself, 



NEW HAVEN 79 

with your nature, in your present vocation, and therefore I 
regard it better, if you must leave, to leave now, better I 
mean for yourself; for the college, of course, will be a 
loser, by losing your knowledge of books, and capacity to 
serve its interests. 

This is interesting as showing the attitude of that day in 
regard to the university library. It is not surprising, there- 
fore, that Gilman found no sympathy in his desire to make 
the library practically what it is to-day. His own words 
to Cooper in an early letter: " I am fixed in the library, con- 
tented and happy, yet not certain that I shall always be will- 
ing to lead a life of such retirement from scenes of public 
excitement," seem to bear out President Woolsey's remarks; 
but as his work there continued and he saw the opportunities 
for expansion and had a vision of what such a library might 
become in connection with a great university, he had ceased 
to feel oppressed by any sense of retirement, and it was not 
the inherent limitations of a librarian's work that brought 
about his decision to give up the post. 

Gilman's resignation was accepted in July and a successor 
named, but, nothing daunted by the difficulties which he had 
been unable to overcome while himself in office, we find him 
that same month signing a petition with twelve other pro- 
fessors, among whom Dana and Whitney were especially 
active, urging the corporation to put the library on a better 
footing, and begging it to appoint a committee which should 
consider these points and confer with the Prudential Com- 
mittee. This committee was appointed, and a few months 
later reported, with the result that almost immediately a 
furnace was put in the vault below the main hall, and two 
years later a reading room, well supplied with periodicals 
and with lights, so that it could be used at night, was opened 
in South Middle; while the Society Libraries were finally 
united in 1872. 



80 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

As late as 1869 we find Gilman's interest in the library 
still unabated, and his feeling that it was the central point 
of the university still strong. In an article about the col- 
lege in the Norwich Bulletin he takes the opportunity to 
make an appeal for the library: " It is scholars who make 
a college ; not bricks and mortar. It is endowments which 
secure the time and services of scholars. Next to scholars 
books are essential, but Yale College has not a dollar on 
hand to buy books for the next two years, its scanty library 
income having already been expended in advance. Will not 
your discussions respecting the college lead some of the 
wealthy men of Norwich to look into the real defects of the 
college and devise some liberal measures for their removal?" 

To his brother: 

Rye Beach, August 2, 1865. 

We are safe at Rye Beach, well and contented. I shall 
have to return to New Haven next week. leaving the family 
here, in order to be present at the American Institute of 
Instruction. 

I have also a great question to answer. You are perhaps 
aware that the Legislature recently placed the affairs of the 
State schools under the charge of a Board of Education 
(Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and four other persons, 
[two] of whom are Professor Thacher and Alfred Coit). 
This board to my surprise and gratification have invited me 
to be their agent or secretary at a salary of $1800 (and ex- 
penses paid) without asking me to give up my place in col- 
lege. We are at a crisis in our school affairs and this ap- 
pears a rare opportunity for influence and usefulness. A 
great work may be done, but whether I can do it or not is 
a question. The salary is not large for the work, but the 
usefulness of the work looks to me most attractive. Shall 
I accept is now the question to which I must soon return an 
answer. 

Gilman decided to accept the new appointment, coming 
so opportunely at the moment when his labors in the college 



NEW HAVEN 81 

library were at an end. The State Board of Education had 
lately been constituted, and its powers defined, by an Act 
approved by the Governor on July 21, 1865. It was allowed 
to elect its own secretary, and very naturally turned to a 
man who had had so much experience and shown so much 
ability while Acting School Visitor of New Haven. The 
secretary's duties were many and varied, including much vis- 
iting of schools in the state, and for the year during which 
he retained the post they kept him fully occupied. In Sep- 
tember he writes to his brother: " I have not yet become 
wonted to my new work and am in considerable perplexity 
regarding it, but I trust that time will make the path of duty 
plain." And again in December: " My new business proves 
to be very engrossing. I am afraid I am not strong enough 
to bear it." 

One of the questions that had been perplexing him was 
that of the State Normal School, the standard of which was 
very low, and which was unsatisfactory from many points of 
view. In December, with two other members of the board, 
he inspected the normal schools of Massachusetts and re- 
turned convinced that the Connecticut School needed com- 
plete re-organization in order to secure its efficiency and 
success, and this was accomplished in the following spring. 

In the spring of 1866 he prepared the first annual report 
of the State Board of Education, which was presented to 
the Legislature in May, and shows some of the results of 
his nine months' work. This report discusses: how to meet 
the lack of a sufficient number of good teachers for the 
schools; the building up and reform of the State Normal 
School; the need for an increase of High Schools in the 
state; the care of vicious and backward children as well as 
of those who were employed in factories and thus deprived 
of the opportunities for education. It gives statistics and 
letters concerning the evils of child labor in our factories, 

6 



82 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

showing how vital this question seemed to him; the advan- 
tages of suppressing small school districts and building up 
fewer and stronger schools; the need of a central office for 
the State Board of Education, to act as a clearing house for 
all the educational interests of the State ; and the value of co- 
operation between the universities or colleges and the public 
schools as the only method by which a really strong and 
vigorous educational system could be built up. All these 
problems are still under discussion, and all the reforms 
demanded by Gilman in this respect are now generally ac- 
knowledged to be necessary, although by no means all have 
as yet been carried through. 

For the last three years he had been again on the New 
Haven School Board, and, as chairman of the School Com- 
mittee, had kept himself thoroughly informed as to the 
schools of the city. His committee presented reports two 
out of the three years, an unusual thing since the appoint- 
ment of a superintendent of schools, and even a slight study 
of these reports shows how much attention he was giving 
the subject of primary education and how important he felt 
it to be. 

In September, 1866, Gilman was elected by the governing 
board of the Sheffield Scientific School as their secretary. 
The development of the Scientific School now became Gil- 
man's first object, and for this work he was peculiarly fitted. 
He found in its faculty men not only of activity and enter- 
prise but of the highest scientific ideals, all working for 
the same object with heart and soul. Their spirit of sac- 
rifice went so far that, at one time, when the funds ran very 
low, they petitioned the corporation to be allowed to reduce 
their salaries in order that they need not cut down the num- 
ber of courses. President Woolsey later said, in reviewing 
the work of the school: "From the first the professors 



NEW HAVEN 83 

have struggled against probabilities; they have worked by 
faith, they have aimed to have a school, sink or swim, worthy 
of the science of this country." As every plan devised to 
advance the school was thoroughly canvassed by the govern- 
ing board before action was taken, each one adding his sug- 
gestions and emendations, it would be difficult now to point 
to the originator of the different measures. Brush, whose 
energies and abilities were devoted wholly to the cause of 
the school, with which he had been connected from its earli- 
est days, must be credited with a large share of them. Gil- 
man was not far behind him in this respect. He was rich 
in expedients, and, with his sanguine temperament, he looked 
far ahead to the object in view, entirely undaunted by the 
obstacles in his path. When a thing was to be done his 
fertile brain devised a thousand ways and means of doing 
it, and nothing seemed impossible to him. These two men 
worked admirably together for the good of the school, and 
it was through them that most of the gifts that were be- 
stowed at this time came to the institution. 

The money granted by the state had allowed the estab- 
lishment of several new professorships and a number of free 
scholarships, and it was now necessary to make the school 
thoroughly known throughout the state of Connecticut, so 
that students should take advantage of these scholarships. 
In his address at the semi-centennial celebration of the Shef- 
field Scientific School, Gilman says: " Soon after the recep- 
tion of this grant, several members of the faculty entered 
upon an educational campaign which can hardly be brought 
to mind, in a retrospect of this long interval, without pro- 
voking a smile at the enthusiasm of youth and at the ' ex- 
pulsive power of a new affection.' The principal towns of 
the state were visited, and the chief men of the tribes as- 
sembled to hear of the new education. Sometimes in lecture 
rooms, frequently in private parlors, once in a court house, 



84 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

once in the Governor's Room at Hartford, and once in a 
fire-engine room, the story was told with the earnestness of 
conviction if not with the grace of eloquence, and with the 
certainty, not of history, but of prophecy. Dana, a constant 
friend, had inaugurated the campaign some years before by 
a public address. Whitney's ' Aim and Object ' was dis- 
tributed as a campaign document, and the newspapers, 
always responsive to the claims of the school, echoed these 
professorial utterances in villages and by-ways. The school 
did not reap much money from the farms or mills, but it 
made hosts of friends whose favor has never departed." 
Though it did not reap much in money, the number of stu- 
dents began to increase as the school became known. 

Mr. Sheffield's gift, early in the year, of $10,000, the 
income of which was to be used to purchase books for the 
Scientific School, inspired the faculty to still further efforts, 
and Gilman and Brush were especially active in their attempt 
to get together $2,000 to be immediately expended in such 
books as were necessary to form the basis of a reference 
library. Gilman's father-in-law showed his interest in the 
school by a substantial gift, as he did on several later occa- 
sions. The enlarged building was provided with a library 
room, and, on taking possession of it, various important 
series of books were presented by the officers of the school. 
Gilman writes to W. D. Whitney, September 4, 1866: 
" Brush told you, I presume, that we have $1100 for the 
immediate expenditure in the Scientific library! We must 
press our subscription at once when the term begins." 

By the end of October the desired $2,000 was obtained. 
Gilman was made librarian and was able to report to the 
Connecticut General Assembly in 1868 that the books were 
all arranged and a complete catalogue on cards prepared. 
The library well started, a fund for physical apparatus, to 
be used especially in the winter's course of lectures for 



NEW HAVEN 85 

mechanics, was the next thought, and again Gilman and 
Brush were put in charge of the matter. A course of eigh- 
teen lectures to mechanics had been given by the professors 
of the Scientific School for the first time in the winter of 
1866, and was attended by about two hundred persons, 
" most of them engaged in the practical operations of life." 
It was a great tax on the already overworked professors, 
but was much appreciated by the people it was intended to 
benefit, and may be looked upon as one of the earliest ex- 
amples of University Extension. The course is still con- 
tinued, though now merged in the general system of 
University lectures. 

The history of the Scientific School at this time, and con- 
sequently of Gilman's life, is one constant struggle for funds 
to support the institution, which was growing more rapidly 
in numbers than in wealth. Already in October, 1866, one 
of his colleagues writes : " I am casting about in every way 
to make a little money to pay my January bills. Salaries in 
the Academic Department have been permanently raised 
to $2,600, which is about two thirds of what it costs a family 
to live economically; in the Scientific School we can only 
pay $2,300, and hardly afford that. If we don't get some 
new funds in the course of the year it will go hard with us." 
And later: " We are trying hard to raise the funds before 
the year begins. If we do not succeed we shall be in no 
small trouble, as we are running a larger machine than we 
can support. We hope to clinch a few patrons and bene- 
factors at that time." 

The entire endowment for the Scientific School yielded 
less than $14,000, including the income of the land grant; 
and the income from tuition added only $8,000. No pecun- 
iary assistance was received from the general funds of Yale. 
It will easily be seen that there was an urgent need of a 
larger endowment, and the letters of that time show what 



86 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

constant pressure the governing board was under to make 
both ends meet. 

The governing board felt obliged, in the autumn of 1867, 
to make a special effort to raise a permanent fund. A meet- 
ing was held in New Haven, people in other parts of the 
state were called upon, and a circular was issued giving a 
brief explanation of the wants of the institution, and the 
necessity of raising at least one hundred thousand dollars for 
the current expenses of the establishment, the income only 
to be expended, and the principal to remain forever as " the 
General Fund of the Scientific School." The response to this 
appeal was disappointing, and money came in so slowly that 
in 1870 we shall find the board making a still greater effort 
in behalf of a permanent fund. 

In 1868 the rapid growth of the School made an increase 
in the funds still more imperative. As Gilman says in his 
report of that year, " Before i860 there were but two 
classes of students, those engaged in the chemical labora- 
tory and those who were studying civil engineering. In 
1868, in accordance with public demand, as our program of 
studies indicates, special professional or technical education 
is provided for chemists, metallurgists, civil, mining and me- 
chanical engineers, agriculturists, geologists and naturalists. 
We are also called upon to provide a general disciplinary 
course closely corresponding to the academic course; and 
likewise higher courses of instruction suited to the wants of 
those who have already taken their first degree and are can- 
didates for a second. Thus the students of the department 
are divided into not less than seventeen groups or squads, 
each having its own prescribed curriculum, and there are 
also several independent students pursuing their special re- 
searches. All this involves of necessity a large corps of 
teachers, every one of whom aims to be proficient in certain 
chosen branches of study. . . . We are only kept back by 



NEW HAVEN 87 

the lack of a sufficient number of teachers from making the 
regular course extend through a period of four years." 

This group system was one of the most valuable ideas he 
took with him to the new universities he was to guide. It 
was not, however, the result of a deliberate plan, but was 
a gradual evolution from conditions existing at the Scien- 
tific School, where the men who gave the actual instruction 
were free to work out their ideas, step by step, without inter- 
ference from higher authorities; and thus it was, to a cer- 
tain extent, the result of the wholesome neglect with which 
the school was treated by the college proper, a neglect that 
proved to be conducive to freedom of growth and develop- 
ment. In the semi-centennial address, often quoted, Gilman 
speaks of it thus: " It is one of the glories of the Sheffield 
that, from the beginning, students have here been permitted 
to choose a group of studies, the constituents of which were 
beyond their control. ' Freedom under control ' has been 
the rule of the house." 

Gilman had much to make his life attractive to him in 
New Haven. Within easy reach of his own family, his 
pleasant home was at all times a center of hospitality for 
them and for his friends. Here he and his wife received the 
students of the school, in a series of general receptions and 
in smaller groups. " The Club " met often at his house, 
and many distinguished visitors from at home and abroad, 
with whom his many activities had brought him into touch, 
were entertained, and made acquainted with his circle of 
colleagues and friends. In fact his life contained so much 
that was interesting and stimulating, both in work and asso- 
ciation, at this time, that a letter asking him if he would 
consider a call to the presidency of the University of Wis- 
consin received but brief consideration. His reply was as 
follows : 



88 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

New Haven, February 9, 1867. 
My dear Sir: 

Your favor of the fifth instant reached me yesterday, and 
as the meeting of the regents is appointed for the thirteenth, 
I feel bound to send you an immediate reply though the 
suggestion which you make calls for a more deliberate 
consideration. 

I cannot deny that a position of so much influence and re- 
sponsibility in the university of a prosperous and growing 
state, situated in a town so inviting as a residence, and en- 
dowed with the National Grant for instruction in natural 
science, looks very attractive; but yet my relations to this 
place and to this college are so pleasant, and my reluctance 
to change is so great that it would be unwise for me to hold 
out any intimation that I could accept the post referred to 
if I should be elected to it. 

At the same time, I beg you to rest assured that I appre- 
ciate the honor of being favorably thought of in such a 
connection, and believe me, dear sir, 

Very respectfully yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

N. B. Van Slyke, Esq., Chairman Exec. Comm. 

Madison, Wisconsin. 

He refers to the matter, but with the utmost brevity, in 
a letter written to his brother on February 18, saying: 
" You may have heard from Norwich that I have been con- 
sulted about accepting the presidency of Wisconsin Univer- 
sity. I have not given the subject much thought, but I wrote 
a declinatory letter." And later in one to Professor Cooper : 
" I abandon all thought of going to the west, my work here 
being satisfactory, at least to myself." 

The years 1867-70 show a continuance of the varied 
activities, in addition to the duties of his professorship, in 
which he was engaged. Among these may be mentioned the 
address delivered before the New Haven Colony Historical 
Society on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 



NEW HAVEN 89 

founding of Yale College, which was published in the pro- 
ceedings of the Society and contains an excellent account of 
the beginnings of the College, the subject being treated in a 
manner very characteristic of the author; a course of Sun- 
day evening lectures on Biblical Geography to Yale students; 
and two papers published in the New Englander (Decem- 
ber, 1867, and January, 1868) on public school questions. 
He delivered a number of lectures and addresses at various 
places on the subject of scientific and technical education; 
and his address at the opening of the State Industrial School 
at Middletown in June, 1870, is of special interest as fore- 
shadowing a department of activity in which he afterward 
became a leader and worker. The address was largely an 
historical and descriptive account of the various charitable 
and penal institutions of the state; but in closing he recom- 
mended three principles to be observed by all engaged in 
charitable and philanthropic work: — first, that all who are 
personally concerned in such work should make it a duty to 
keep thoroughly informed in respect to what is doing else- 
where, in order to know what to avoid and abandon, and 
what to test and adopt; second, that women should be em- 
ployed in charitable undertakings and trained especially for 
such work, so that they should be ready to take the higher 
and more responsible positions in the various institutions; 
and third, that in all charitable and reformatory institutions 
there should be full publicity as to income and expenditure 
and that the entire management should be open to public 
inspection. It is plain from this that neither his interest 
nor his insight in regard to systematized charity was a new 
thing to him when, a number of years later, he took so active 
a part in promoting it. 

The Scientific School continued to progress, but its fiscal 
difficulties did not diminish. In Gilman's report of May, 
1869, he was obliged to announce that through lack of funds 



90 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

the school had lost the services of the professor of Mining, 
a kindred institution in another city being able to offer him a 
suitable salary, which the resources of the Scientific School 
did not permit it to pay. Another melancholy announce- 
ment was that, by a change in the investment of the land- 
grant money, the interest was, at least temporarily, so re- 
duced that the salaries must be cut from $2,300 to $2,000. 
He adds: " It is the personal interest of the professors in 
this particular foundation which has kept them here in spite 
of the proposals constantly made to them to engage in other 
occupations or to connect themselves with other kindred 
institutions in other parts of the country, and the belief 
that in New Haven a vigorous college of science will at all 
times be required." In this condition of things an earnest 
effort to raise an endowment was obviously a vital neces- 
sity, and Gilman of course exerted himself energetically in 
this direction. The leading men of Connecticut were en- 
listed in the cause and, though no great sum was raised at 
once, enough was accomplished to give heart to the govern- 
ing board and encourage them to make some enlargement of 
the staff of the school. It is interesting to note, in view of 
the change in sentiment which has since taken place, that 
Gilman, in reporting that only $70,000 had been received 
instead of the quarter million which had been hoped for, 
remarked that the governing board were " well aware how 
many prejudices are to be overcome among the practical 
business men, who look with distrust upon any phase of col- 
lege training, and among the college-bred men who look 
with suspicion, if not hostility, upon what they call the New 
Education, and between the two they are aware that time, 
with good results, will be the best mediator." 

A letter to Andrew D. White contains a note of jubila- 
tion over the securing of the Hillhouse library of mathe- 
matical books, which had been in danger of being sold to 
Cornell University: 



NEW HAVEN 91 

New Haven, May 23, 1870. 
My dear Andrew: 

I assure you we are just as sorry to keep the Hillhouse 
Library from you as you would have been to take it from 
us, and what more can I say? Hillhouse was strict in ad- 
hering to his engagements with you. He would not re- 
ceive, nor did we make any proposition, in respect to our 
buying the books, till the utmost limit of the time allotted 
you had expired. Thanks to a good friend we offered him 
cash on the nail as soon as he was free, and the bargain was 
closed beyond hope of opening. You only failed to get a 
good thing. We should have made a clear loss if the books 
had gone from next door to us, where they have so long 
been accessible to our mathematicians. What can we do 
to make amends? You shall have free use of the books as 
much as you desire, and if it is very important that they and 
the architectural books should be near together, we will do 
our best to make room for the last-named also. 

I want very much to see the new University in its begin- 
nings, for if I do not soon visit you the child will be a giant 
grown. I am to deliver the opening address at the State 
Industrial School in Middletown, the last of June, and I 
fear that the day coincides with your anniversary. If it 
does not I will try to accept your invitation, though I am 
quite mystified by your intimations. I want no stronger in- 
ducements than a welcome from you. 

Ever truly yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

During this period Gilman endured the great sorrow of 
seeing his wife's health fail and all measures taken for the 
restoration of it prove ineffective. She passed away in the 
fall of 1869, and he announced her death to their friends 
in these words : 

Mary Ketcham, 

Wife of Daniel C. Gilman, 

Died in New Haven, Connecticut, October 25, 1869, 
aged 31 years. After many months of weariness and suf- 



92 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

fering, borne with a beautiful serenity, which was as natural 
to her as comforting to others, and alleviated by innumer- 
able tokens of sympathy and love, she calmly gave up chil- 
dren, friends, home, with all that made earth dear, and fell 
asleep, trusting in Christ and hopefully looking forward to 
the life to come. 

Thanks be to God, Which giveth us the Victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The following letter from Gilman to W. D. Whitney on 
his call to Harvard, written during the last weeks of Mrs. 
Gilman's illness, is inserted here on account of its being so 
thoroughly characteristic of his never-failing sympathy with 
his friends, his ability to put himself in their place and take 
their point of view, and the generous way in which he was 
able to express his appreciation of their abilities and charac- 
ter. That Professor Whitney appreciated and returned his 
regard can be seen by this extract from one of his own let- 
ters, concerning this same matter: "That my personal at- 
tachments here are strong, you will readily conceive. I do 
not suppose there is any man in the country who could be to 
me what Mr. Hadley is; nor can a more whole-souled body 
of men be found than my colleagues in the Scientific School, 
Brush first of all, and Gilman and Brewer next, with whom 
association in labor would be pleasanter." 

To W. D.Whitney: 

New Haven, October 13, 1869. 

My dear friend: 

I have been so closely confined at home since the day when 
you made known to me the Cambridge proposal that I have 
not been able to exchange a word with you on the subject. 
But I should be very sorry to have you think that I have 
been indifferent to the possibility of your acceptance. The 
same cause which has kept me at home, has given me much 
quiet opportunity for reflection both by night and by day, 



NEW HAVEN 93 

and I have often recurred to our talk upon the green a fort- 
night or so ago. It happens also that I have seen more of 
our friends than I have of you, and know something of the 
college sentiment respecting your very great importance to 
all the interests of learning in New Haven. 

So long as there was no light on the pecuniary question it 
seemed heartless, almost, to urge your remaining here on the 
present meagre allowance which you receive for services 
second to none which are rendered by any of the profes- 
sorial body. But now that there is a liberal proposal from 
one individual, I hope that in one way or other agreeable 
to you, this lower phase of the question will be made to ap- 
pear as good in New Haven as it is in Cambridge, so that 
whatever your decision may be it will not turn on the matter 
of a salary. It seems to me that the Scientific School can 
well pay you liberally for your discipline of the Freshman 
Class, releasing you, if you desire it, from instruction in 
French, and requesting you to give to all our Seniors a short 
course of lectures or lessons in the history or principles of 
linguistics. 

If the money question can be adjusted to your satisfac- 
tion, it seems to me that you ought to weigh well the very 
cordial esteem in which you are held by all your associates 
in Yale College. You will doubtless make other friendships 
in Cambridge, but they will be comparatively new and un- 
tried. Possibly you may think that the expressions now 
made are those of the emergency, because in the ordinary in- 
tercourse and pressure of life there is so little demonstration 
of friendly esteem or intellectual admiration; but I know 
(and so does Mr. Hadley and Mr. Brush) that you have 
long had a very strong influence upon the scholarship of the 
college, not by any means among the philologists alone but 
almost equally among all the students associated with you. 
It would certainly gratify you and possibly surprise you to 
hear men like Mr. Dana and Mr. Verrill express themselves 
as strongly respecting their appreciation of your services, as 
Mr. Hadley and Mr. Van Name. Their expressions are 
not those of the present moment only, but are their constant 
and long-cherished sentiments. So far as I know, there is 
but one voice among all the college officers, a strong desire 



94 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

to retain you here if it can be done without detriment to your 
interests. 

I do not feel that my personal sentiments are of much 
importance to you but I cannot refrain from expressing to 
you my very great obligations for the services, direct and in- 
direct, which you have rendered me ever since we spent so 
many hours together over the pages of the dictionary. You 
have impressed on me many valuable principles, not merely 
of learning but of life, and I should feel that a great support 
was taken away if you were to leave New Haven. I never 
think of your industry, patience, and your absolute love of 
truth without being quickened in good impulses and helped 
in new exertions. I earnestly hope that when you look at 
the problem in all its lights, the solution will be found in re- 
maining here, and that if this decision is reached it may be 
the occasion for pushing forward the University interests 
as they have never been pushed heretofore. 

I have written with frequent interruptions, being called 
upon from time to time to lay down my pen and go to the 
side of one who, with great serenity and trust, is looking 
in the face the end of earthly hopes, but you will excuse the 
imperfections of my note in view of the sincere regard with 
which I am ever your friend, 

D. C. G. 

Gilman received a call to the presidency of the University 
of California in 1870, and gave the question of its accept- 
ance serious consideration before deciding to decline the 
invitation and remain at his work in New Haven; and in 
the autumn we find him back at his post. 

In February, 1871, the Sheffield Scientific School was in- 
corporated. This move had long been strongly advised 
by Mr. Sheffield, who desired to have the Scientific School 
independent, in the control of its property, of the Corpora- 
tion of Yale College ; not from want of confidence, but from 
conviction that this would be the best way. In pursuance of 
Mr. Sheffield's request, after various consultations on the 
subject, Professors Brush, Gilman and Trowbridge, and 



NEW HAVEN 95 

Messrs. John S. Beach, William Walter Phelps and Charles 
J. Sheffield associated themselves into a body politic and 
corporate for scientific purposes, the name of the corpora- 
tion being the Board of Trustees of the Sheffield Scientific 
School, and its object and purpose to promote the study of 
physical, natural and mathematical sciences in the college or 
school of sciences known as the Sheffield Scientific School, 
located at New Haven; the property of the corporation 
to be managed by a board of nine directors, three of them, 
the Governor of Connecticut, the President of Yale, and the 
chairman of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum, being 
members ex officio, the remaining six being the above- 
mentioned associates. 

No account of Gilman's life at this time would be com- 
plete without something more than passing mention of 
Joseph Earl Sheffield, the generous benefactor of the school, 
with whom he came so closely in contact and who had so 
often helped the governing board over a tight place, and 
given them the support not only of his pecuniary assistance 
but of his entire sympathy and confidence in their work and 
aims. Gilman's own tribute to him in his address at the 
celebration of the semi-centennial of the school will best 
express his regard for this friend of the school : 

Mr. Sheffield was a man whom future generations, like 
the present, may delight to acknowledge and honor as a 
founder. Nothing will ever be revealed about him that his 
school will wish to cover. On the contrary, if those who 
knew him best would utter what they know, the world would 
admire even more than it does now the sagacity, the modesty, 
the consideration, and the unselfishness of our great bene- 
factor. His liberality grew with the growth of the school. 
It was shown in little things and in great; in the payment 
of current bills and the provision of large funds. " I get 
my reward every time I look out upon that workshop," was 
the answer he made to an expression of gratitude. " No in- 
vestment pays me so well," was another of his remarks. 



96 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN • 

. . . Yet with all this growing interest, and with his readi- 
ness to listen to all the inside history of the school, he never 
to the slightest degree interfered with its affairs. He trusted 
the governing board. He knew more intimately than any 
member of the corporation the plans, the wants, the suc- 
cess and the limitations of the school, and to the utmost of 
his ability he contributed to its maintenance. . . . His only 
regrets were the limitations of his resources. To all of 
these engaging traits must be added the remembrance of 
his strong intellect, his comprehensive charity, his integrity, 
gentleness and faith. Happy the school that can bestow love 
as well as gratitude upon the memory of its chief benefactor. 

The act of incorporation was followed by a new gift from 
Mr. Sheffield, of a lot of land on Prospect Street, close to 
the school, " with any building or buildings I may cause to 
be erected thereon," which gift was vested in the new board 
of trustees. The building which Mr. Sheffield caused to be 
erected there was devoted to lecture rooms, class rooms, and 
collections. 

Another gift to Yale College in which Gilman was spe- 
cially interested, and in the securing of which he was instru- 
mental, was that of the Winchester Observatory. Mr. Win- 
chester gave to a board of trustees, of which he was one, a 
tract of thirty-eight acres on a high ridge on Prospect Street, 
north of the Scientific School, some of which land was to be 
sold, and the money derived therefrom to be applied to 
the foundation of an observatory for astronomical and 
physical researches in connection with Yale College. 

The following letter to Professor Cooper refers to a 
course of lectures delivered at Princeton in February, 1871, 
on " The Structure of the Earth " : 

New Haven, March 3, 1871. 
My dear Cooper: 

On my arrival here yesterday I received your cordial note 
of the 27th. I wish it had been convenient for me to re- 



NEW HAVEN 97 

main longer with you in New Brunswick, and you may be 
assured that I greatly enjoyed the opportunity of a brief 
interview. . . . 

I was closely occupied during all my visit to Princeton, 
lecturing twice daily, and spending some time in preparation. 
The glimpse which I had of your'life and its surroundings 
was most interesting to me, and one of these days I shall 
hope to see you more leisurely. My Princeton work is over. 

With kind regards to Mrs. Cooper, I am, dear friend, 

Ever faithfully yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



To Andrew D. White : 

New Haven, May 5, 1871. 
My dear Andrew: 

I am glad to see by your sign manual, that you are yourself 
again, at home, at work, and as always thoughtful of your 
friends. Though I missed seeing you in New York, I came 
up with Fred Davies in the cars just after he had parted 
from you, and if your ears did not burn when he talked and 
I listened, or when I talked and he listened, regarding all 
your activities, why then your ears cannot be the most sen- 
sitive part of your body. We both of us rejoice that your 
good sense kept you out of any foolish recommendations in 
respect to San Domingo, and led you to give so good a nar- 
rative of facts and observations. Your appointment, in my 
opinion, saved the government from a great deal of folly. 
I long for a good chance to talk over with you all that you 
saw and did. 

As to Yale matters, the tendency, right or wrong, is to 
diversity or duality in the undergraduate instruction-course 
rather than to unity; that is to say, the Sheffield Scientific 
School is bound to work out its notions in one way and the 
old college in another will carry on its plans. There is no 
sign of hostility or rivalry but of increasing good will. 
Gradually all our instructions have become distinct from 
theirs and now not one of our classes goes to the old college 
for instruction. This is contrary to our original expecta- 

7 



98 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






tions and desires; we have rather been forced into these cir- 
cumstances; but the fact is everything goes better than it 
did when we were trying to combine two different institu- 
tions. This requires an hour's talk, not a single letter's page 
to explain. Do come and see us. There is always a wel- 
come for you; and if Mrs. White will join you it will be all 
the pleasanter for us. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

During the first six months of 1871 Yale College was 
kept constantly before the public in the newspapers; hot 
discussions between " Old Yale " and " Young Yale," and 
bitter attacks on the college, being heard and read on all 
sides. In the previous December President Woolsey had 
given notice to the corporation of his intention of resigning 
the presidency in the following July, and the question of his 
successor was being constantly agitated, while that of the 
change in the charter proposed by President Woolsey him- 
self in October, 1866, in an article in the New Englander, 
shared with it the attention of the alumni. His proposal 
had been that some representation in the Yale corporation 
should be given to the alumni, and he suggested that the six 
senior State Senators who were ex officio members of that 
body, and who rarely held their office more than one year, 
should surrender their places to six men chosen from, and 
elected by, the alumni of Yale College. 

The charter of Yale then in force required that the ten 
members of the corporation, besides the ex officio members, 
consisting of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and the 
six senior State Senators, and the President of the college, 
should be Congregational ministers of the State of Connecti- 
cut, who should serve for life and should be a self-electing 
body. The greater number of the younger Yale alumni had 
become dissatisfied with what they considered the conserva- 



NEW HAVEN 99 

tlve attitude of the college, and, holding the ten Congrega- 
tional ministers responsible for this state of affairs, were 
eager to have some representation of their own on the cor- 
poration, while the more conservative element felt that the 
interests of Yale were safe in the hands of the ten ministers, 
and dreaded any change. 

Gilman was actively engaged on a committee to work out 
the best plan possible for the proposed change. Notes to 
him from President Woolsey about alterations in the pro- 
jected bill desired by the Faculty, and several drafts of the 
bill in Gilman's handwriting, show how much thought he 
was giving to the matter. While they were deliberating 
what to do, Governor Jewell, in his message, recommended 
to the General Assembly of Connecticut that one half of 
the State representation be surrendered to the alumni, the 
new members to be elected by the alumni to serve for four 
years, and added: " I do not know how this can be done, 
if at all, nor am I aware whether it would be agreeable to 
any of the parties concerned, but if it can be accomplished, 
I think the effect would be good." At the same time he 
wrote Gilman: 

Hartford, May 15, 1871. 
My dear Gilman: 

I have taken my chances and have gone for Yale College. 
Don't know how it will suit, but I have opened the ques- 
tion for Yale. I propose that the State shall surrender half 
its representation to the Alumni at large. Let us see what 
will come of it. But I have had really no time to mature my 
message as I ought. 

Yours truly, 

Marshall Jewell. 

At almost the same time President Woolsey had published 
an article in the Congregationalist, dealing with the sub- 
ject in a more abstract manner, and Gilman followed up 



ioo LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

these two utterances with a long, well-reasoned and con- 
vincing article in the Nation, ending with : " The only one of 
the considerations needing an immediate answer is Governor 
Jewell's message. ... As a basis for further discussion 
the following suggestions are made. Yale College should 
be regarded as a society of scholars; to be admitted to the 
society the candidate must receive a degree either in course 
or honorary. All such persons as have thus been graduated 
by the President and Fellows of Yale should be electors of 
the fellows and be eligible to fellowships, with the proviso 
that bachelors should be of five years' standing before begin- 
ning to exercise the privilege. The term for which a fellow- 
ship should be held should be six years, and details of ar- 
rangements in respect to nominations and elections should 
be left to the President and Fellows, who may be trusted to 
act in good faith." 

A bill was drawn up on these general lines, and, at Presi- 
dent Woolsey's request, " lest it seem as if our counsels 
were divided," Gilman went up to Hartford to do what he 
could to further it. He was provided with several changes 
to be made in its wording, suggested by the faculty. The 
following letter from Governor Jewell, however, convinced 
him that it would be better to let it go through as it was, 
and the bill was accordingly passed and became law be- 
fore Commencement Day, as the Governor desired. Some 
changes as to details were made the next year. 

Hartford, July 5, 1871. 
Prof. Gilman: 

I had a sort of ambition to get the Yale College bill all 
through and signed and fixed before Commencement and so 
get the credit of it and have done with it. I had the bill 
recalled to have one word changed, which was evidently 
right. I have been looking after it again today, and find 
Prof. Thacher and yourself have asked still further changes 



NEW HAVEN 101 

which some like and some don't. I haven't seen it and don't 
know about it and don't much believe it is going to get 
through this week after all. I can put it through well enough 
if I can find out what is wanted or what would be satis- 
factory. I haven't much time to give to it but still have 
enough to put it through if I can find out what to put 
through, and I shall feel a little chagrined, I am free to con- 
fess, if after all it's not going to be done this week. It can 
all be killed dreadful easy and if it's tinkered much, may be. 
Believing it to be right and having started it, I wanted to 
have it completed before I went down. Do you want me to 
bother any more about it? It can be spoiled by too many 
cooks like any other broth. Something should be presented 
that is satisfactory and passed. 

Yours (a little out of patience), 

Marshall Jewell. 

The question of President Woolsey's successor was still 
to be settled. There had been a vain hope among the 
younger alumni that the election would be postponed a year, 
so that the new alumni members of the corporation might 
be able to have a voice in this important subject. Many 
names had been mentioned in connection with this office and 
among them that of Gilman, a favorite candidate of Young 
Yale. Several of the men who had worked with him in the 
Scientific School also thought that he would be the ideal man 
for the place and would do for Yale what President Eliot 
was doing for Harvard. In a letter from a member of the 
governing board of the Scientific School written at the time 
of Gilman's first call to California we find: " You do not 
do Gilman justice; he would be, I think, the best man select- 
able to put the California University through, as his loss 
would be the greatest we could endure. You know I told 
you last spring that I hoped to see him our president, 
and we certainly need the best man not less than do the 
Californians." 



[02 LIFE 0I« DAMI',1, COJ'J OILMAN 
In many of fix- sharp criticisms of the college made hy 

tli'-.c who thought thai Harvard was outstripping Vale, the 

Scientific School had been especially excepted. Due praise 
was given to iti progressive management, and much of this 
luperioi development was attributed to Gilman. Among 

the artidei in th< papers in favor of him as candidate arc 

tome which show a just appreciation of hit ability and 

powers a.s an executive head. In Comparing him with an- 

othei candidate one of these raisei the question "whether 
executive ability, tact, a power of management and govern- 
ment, a keen and quick appreciation of each new wan! ai if 
arises, and a ready way of meeting it, a thorough knowl- 
edge "l jusl what ii needed In each department, and how 
best obtained; and, moreover, a true understanding of, and 
a warm kindred reeling with, the student! themselves in 
their everyday life; whether these are not alter all more 

essential for the hesf pood of Yale than Scholarship, and 

what hai heen known as 01 I hodox y." 

A', the tune 01 election drew near it hecame evident that 
the Vale Corporation would not uphold any our so closely 

allied with the "new education" and that there was 
practically but one candidate in the field. 'That Gilman 

VTaS already marked out as pi <■ eminent ly qualified for 

the position of executive head of a large university if 

<le;nly ihoWfl hy the I wo (alls he had received I com the 

Universities of Wisconsin and California, and it is inter- 
esting tO Speculate upon what would have Imtii 1 1n- result 

for Vale il these qualities had been recognized hy his 

Alma Mater. 

Early in August Gilman was appointed hy the Commis 
sionei of Education, General John Eaton, to visit, in behalf 
<d ili< Bureau of Education, the various institutions in the 

Northern Slate-. whi< h had organized nn<l< i the Act of ( On- 

gress for the Promotion of Agriculture and the Mechanic 



NEW 1 1 WIN 



'".> 



Arts. The principal results oi his inquiries were t<> be em- 
bodied in a report to the Bureau ol Kducation. A list oi 
questions respecting these Scientific Schools, to Ik* submitted 
to them, was drawn up l>y him and printed; and he was 
provided with a circular letter <>i appointment addressed 
to the heads ol the schools. The report was to he published 
in November, hut owing to the fact that during ;i Large part 
of the time between his appointment and that date the 
schools were having their vacations, (lihnan lound it best 
to defer his detailed report until the following year, giving 
only ;i more general one at thai tunc, lie had, however, 
personally inspected nine <»i the National Schools oi Science 
east of the Rocky Mountains, had interviewed the principal 
officers of eight more, and corresponded with those oi still 
other <>i the institutions. On his way west he- represented 
the Sheffield Scientific School ;it ;i gathering ol gentlemen 
interested in Agricultural Schools, which was held in 
Chicago for the purpose ol conference and discussion in 
respect to the best methods oi promoting agricultural knowl- 
edge and education, and still more particularly with refer- 
ence to the experiments in agriculture which might be made 
by various institutions oi that class. This was more or less 
preliminary to a larger conference which was held in Wash 
ington the following February, at the invitation oi the Secre- 
tary ol Agriculture, at which Gilman and Professor John- 
sou represented the Scientific School. There the subject oi 
a request to Congress for a further appropriation for the 
encouragement oi technical education was discussed, and a 
committee to memorialize Congress in favor oi an increased 
appropriation appointed. A committee was also lormed to 
consider what measures should be recommended for the 
establishment of Agricultural Experiment Stations. I Efforts 

were made to get the National Schools ol Science to co- 
operate and bring what influence they could to bear on 



io 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Congress in favor of such legislation, and Gilman exerted 
himself to the utmost in its behalf. 

A bill was accordingly introduced into the Senate pro- 
posing to bestow upon the several institutions aided by the 
enactment of 1862 an additional grant of land, and one was 
introduced into the House with the same end in view. Sen- 
ator Morrill was the author of the Senate bill and, by his 
invitation together with that of Senator Buckingham of 
Connecticut, a committee of the Governing Board of the 
Sheffield Scientific School addressed two private assemblies 
of Senators and Representatives in Washington, on April 17 
and 18, with reference to the importance of these scientific 
and polytechnic institutions. Gilman and Trowbridge were 
sent on by the Scientific School for this purpose, and in their 
speeches expressed their " confidence in the wisdom of the 
original enactment, and in its great benefit to the country 
generally; and especially called attention to the fact that it 
secured local responsibility under national aid, scientific edu- 
cation without disparagement of literary culture, scientific 
schools rather than simple agricultural schools, and instruc- 
tion funds instead of bricks and mortar." They met with a 
cordial response, and everything seemed favorable to the 
new enactment; but the two bills, after passing both houses 
by overwhelming majorities, failed, in the hurry which at- 
tends the last hours of Congress, for lack of agreement as to 
details between the two houses. 

The work of the Scientific School had gone on prosper- 
ously during the year 1871-72. In his seventh and last re- 
port Gilman was able to announce that the effort which 
began in 1870 to raise a fund of a quarter of a million dol- 
lars for the endowment of the Scientific School had been 
successful and that the amount had been secured. " No 
agents have been employed and no commissions paid. A 
variety of private and public meetings have been held; a 



NEW HAVEN 105 

number of explanatory pamphlets have been printed; gentle- 
men at home and from a distance have been induced to visit 
the school; in short it has been the constant endeavor of the 
governing board to interest intelligent men in the character, 
results, and methods of the work in which we are engaged." 
The Governing Board too were much encouraged in July 
by the gift of $20,000 in two sums of $10,000 each towards 
a Professors' Fund of $50,000, provided that amount should 
be raised within two years. 

The severe illness of his younger daughter clouded the 
spring of 1872 with intense anxiety, and much time was 
given by him to reading everything that had been written 
about the disease, meningitis, from which she was suffering. 
He sent to Europe for publications that could not be ob- 
tained in this country. The child slowly recovered, but he 
became convinced that a milder climate would give her a 
greater chance of regaining perfect health, and the Cali- 
fornia plan began to assume a new aspect. The following 
letter is to President White, with whom he had kept in close 
touch in promoting the movement in behalf of the agri- 
cultural and scientific schools: 

My dear Andrew : 

All my activity is paralysed by the sudden and alarming 
illness of a dear little child, four years of age, who has been 
the joy of our household these last sad years. 

I have heard from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wiscon- 
sin, Minnesota, all helping forward the National Grant bill. 

Yours ever, 
D. C. G. 
New Haven, 8 May, '72. 

In June Gilman again received an appointment from the 
Commissioner of Education to inspect the National Schools 
of Science which had not come within his scope the previous 
year, with the request that, if possible, he go as far as the 



io6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Pacific coast, though as the appropriation for his services 
was very small this point was not insisted upon. He did 
go as far as the Pacific coast, however, and returned at the 
end of the summer with his mind made up to accept the 
presidency of the University of California, which had again 
been offered to him. The illness of the little child already 
referred to, and the hope that a milder climate would help 
in restoring her to perfect health, was undoubtedly one 
reason which influenced him in accepting the new position; 
but the opportunity for the exercise of abilities which so far 
he had only been able to use in a limited degree must have 
made the offer one of great attraction to him. 

His letter of resignation, President Porter's reply, and a 
brief note to President White follow: 

New Haven, September 12, 1872. 
My dear Sir: 

Since the close of the last college term I have been chosen 
President of the University of California, and have been 
to San Francisco that I might become personally acquainted 
with the Regents and their plans. The prospects of the 
new institution are full of hope, and the opportunities for 
usefulness in its service are ample. Family considerations 
had predisposed me to regard with favor a change of cli- 
mate. Under all the circumstances, I have come with great 
reluctance to the decision that duty requires me to relin- 
quish my work in the Scientific School and to sever the ties 
which have bound me to New Haven uninterruptedly since 
I came here as a student. 

I therefore beg leave to resign by this letter my office of 
a professor in Yale College, with all the duties growing out 
of it which have been entrusted to me by the Corporation. 
In taking this step it is a pleasure to believe that all the de- 
partments of the University are flourishing and that es- 
pecially the Scientific School has attained to a position of 
strength and of growing influence. 

In communicating to the Corporation my resignation, will 
you be good enough to assure them of my undiminished in- 



NEW HAVEN 107 

terest in everything which will promote the welfare of Yale 
College; and will you accept for yourself my congratula- 
tions upon the auspicious opening of your administration. 
With sincere regards for you and all associated with you 
in the instruction and government of Yale College, 

I remain, dear Sir, etc. etc. 
Rev. Dr. Porter, President, etc. 

Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, 

September 13, 1872. 
To Professor Daniel C. Gilman: 
My dear Sir: 

Yours of the twelfth, resigning your office as professor in 
Yale College, has been received and will be communicated 
to the Corporation at its next session. 

I beg leave to assure you of the high estimate of the value 
of your services to all departments of the college which is 
entertained by all the several faculties, and especially of the 
very efficient and successful activity which you have ex- 
hibited in the organization and development of the Sheffield 
Scientific School. We regret to lose you from this field of 
activity in which you have been so conspicuous, but we give 
you our congratulations and our best wishes as you enter 
upon the very promising field to which you have been so 
cordially invited. Your connection with the great university 
on the Pacific will add a new bond of interest and sympathy 
to the many which connect Yale College with that land of 
enterprise and hope. 

Accept my grateful acknowledgments for your many acts 
of personal kindness and for the friendly feelings which you 
have so uniformly manifested to myself. 

With the most sincere regards and best wishes, 

I am, most truly yours, 

Noah Porter. 

To Andrew D. White : 

My dear Andrew : 

Safe home again, with a head full of new experiences and 
aspirations, I shall not feel " to enjoy my mind " until I have 



108 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

seen and talked with you. Here or in New York or in 
Utica. My time is so fully occupied that I can understand 
how busy you may be; but if you are to be in New York 
within two or three weeks, I hope you will let me know. 
I expect to begin my new duties out there, about November 
first. 

Ever cordially yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

New Haven, September 17, 1872. 

Gilman's departure from New Haven was the cause of 
universal regret, his friends feeling not only their personal 
loss but also the loss the college sustained in his removal 
from its activities. By none was it more deeply felt than by 
his colleagues on the governing board of the Scientific 
School, and in their report of the following year they speak 
of him in these words: 

"... Yielding to repeated solicitations he accepted last 
year the Presidency of the University of California, and 
departed to that State in October; and there his zeal, his 
ability, his untiring energy, and his fertility of resources 
have already begun to make themselves largely felt. None 
parted from him with more regret than those who had so 
long been associated with him in the management of the 
Scientific School; and they desire to express publicly here 
their appreciation of his earnest and constant efforts to pro- 
mote the growth of this department, and their full confi- 
dence in and hope for his success in the new and broad field 
of labor upon which he has entered." 

Gilman might well feel that he was leaving the Scientific 
School in a flourishing condition and that it had attained a 
position of strength and growing influence, when he looked 
back to its condition and prospects at the time when in 
1856 he aided Professor Dana in drawing up the " Pro- 
posed Plan." During the six years in which, as the next 



NEW HAVEN 109 

report says, Gilman was the principal exponent of the school 
to the public, and when he was giving to it all his best ener- 
gies, the number of students had more than doubled, while 
the number of the courses offered had risen from three to 
eight, its building had been enlarged, a second one donated 
by the same generous hand, a library had been endowed and 
catalogued, a valuable mathematical library had been added 
to it, an excellent collection of mechanical models and appa- 
ratus had been given, and collections of various sorts had 
been started. Instead of leading a precarious, hand to mouth 
existence, a substantial addition of $250,000 had been made 
to the endowment fund, and a new Professors' Fund of 
$50,000 was well under way. Best of all, the Scientific 
School had made itself known and respected in the world 
and had acquired a host of friends, and such a position that 
even the other departments of the college had begun to 
admit that it was worthy of a place among them. 

That these sixteen years in New Haven had been a fruit- 
ful period in his life, we will let Gilman himself bear wit- 
ness: " In quick succession colleges, departments of science, 
and independent institutes have appeared in every state. 
Of these not a few have adopted the methods here followed 
or have called to their support those who have been here 
trained. For one such institution, now celebrating its major- 
ity, permit me to acknowledge with filial gratitude the im- 
pulses, lessons, warnings, and encouragements derived from 
the Sheffield Scientific School; and publicly admit that much 
of the health and strength of Johns Hopkins University is 
due to early and repeated draughts upon the life-giving 
springs of New Haven." 



CHAPTER III 

CALIFORNIA 

In order to understand the situation with which Mr. Gilman 
had to deal when he assumed the presidency of the Univer- 
sity of California, it is necessary to glance briefly at the cir- 
cumstances in which the University took its rise and at the 
history of its initial years. Chartered in 1868 by the State, 
there were two elements that entered into its organization 
and influenced its future which had their origin elsewhere 
than in the State government. In the first place, the Uni- 
versity absorbed an existing institution, the College of Cali- 
fornia, which since i860 had done great service in cultivat- 
ing a university sentiment in the community; and in the 
compact between the State and the College by which the 
absorption was effected, it was stipulated that there should 
be perpetually maintained in the University a " College of 
Letters." The other element referred to was the land grant 
bestowed on the State by the Federal Government, under 
the Morrill Act of 1862, which required the maintenance 
of " at least one college where the leading object shall be, 
without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and 
including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning 
as are related to agriculture and the mechanical arts, in 
such manner as the legislature of the States may respectively 
prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical edu- 
cation of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and 
professions of life." 

The government of the University was placed in the 
hands of a Board of Regents, which included the Governor, 
Lieutenant-Governor, Speaker of the Assembly, and Super- 



CALIFORNIA in 

intendent of Public Instruction, two ex officio representa- 
tives of the agricultural and mechanical interests of the 
State, eight Trustees appointed by the Governor and eight 
selected by the other fourteen. Later, the law was amended 
so that all except the ex-officio Regents should be appointed 
by the Governor. 

The State took over the work of higher education in the 
autumn of 1869, on the property in Oakland that had been 
occupied by the College of California. Martin Kellogg, 
one of the staunchest sustainers of university ideals, long 
the Dean of the Academic Senate, and later President of 
the University (1890-99), continued in the University, as 
he had been in the College, Professor of Ancient Languages. 
John and Joseph Le Conte, finest ornaments of the Faculty, 
were called from the University of South Carolina to fill the 
chairs of Physics and Geology respectively. W. T. Welcker 
and Frank Soule, graduates of West Point, were appointed, 
the former Professor and the latter Assistant-Professor of 
Mathematics. Ezra S. Carr was chosen Professor of Agri- 
culture, and William Swinton Professor of English and His- 
tory. In 1 87 1 Willard B. Rising, a graduate of Hamilton 
College and of Heidelberg, instructor in Chemistry in the 
University of Michigan, and a short while Professor of 
Natural Science in the College of California, was added to 
the Faculty as Professor of Chemistry. These were the 
more important men on the staff of instruction. 

At the outset the Regents did not elect a President, but 
they designated Professor John Le Conte Acting President, 
in which capacity he served for one year. A serious mistake 
had thus been made by the Regents in selecting a Faculty 
without competent advice, and, more especially, without 
considering the importance of harmonious cooperation be- 
tween Faculty and President. The Regents were mostly 
new to administrative work of this kind, although some of 



ii2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

them had been trustees of the College of California. They 
were men of strongly marked individuality of character. 
They had a full sense of the power and authority of their 
position, but perhaps were not fully conscious of their re- 
sponsibilities. They regarded all their appointees as in a 
measure their employees. There were of course individual 
Regents who had a real understanding of their responsi- 
bilities and of the relations that ought to exist between 
Regents, President and Faculty. But taken as a body, gifted, 
strong, successful and right-minded men though they were, 
they did not realize the true position which they should hold 
as one of the many parts of the whole institution. 

At this time the fires of the Civil War were not completely 
extinguished in California. They were not only wont to 
flare up in the political camp, but they cast their lights and 
shadows on many a meeting and enterprise of economic, 
industrial, educational and social character. The Board of 
Regents, as first composed, contained men from both the 
North and the South, some of whom had not lost all traces 
of their origin in a common Californianism. The spirit of 
domination characterized some of the Southern members, 
and it showed itself in the selection of the original members 
of the Faculty. Fortunately most of these professors were 
men of such ability and such purity of character that no 
harm was done to the University. The prevailing tendency 
was likewise shown in the offer of the presidency in 1869 
to General George B. McClellan. Not only was there a 
desire to prevent too large an ascendancy of New England 
ideas in education, together with an anti-Congregational 
sentiment, but there was also a leaning toward a military 
school. This latter sentiment desired that emphasis be laid 
on the feature of the Morrill Act which provided for in- 
struction in military science and tactics. The Presbyte- 
rians and Congregationalists had been the source of inspira- 



CALIFORNIA 113 

tion of the College of California. Naturally, they did not 
wish the aims for which they had staked so much all lost 
in the University. Many points of divergence might be 
suggested in the resulting discussions and controversies, but 
three may be specially singled out as distinguishing their 
exponents into ( 1 ) those who resented New England as- 
sumption of superiority in, if not exclusive possession of, 
educational ideals, and Puritan assumption of superior 
righteousness; (2) those who provoked such feelings of 
resentment; and (3) church bodies and individuals, who 
deplored any sort of undenominational college and espe- 
cially a non-sectarian, otherwise " godless," State Univer- 
sity. But the true voice of California was heard from the 
mouths of another element — the enlightened, temperate, 
sane element, composed of men from New England, from 
New York, from the South, from the West, college men 
and self-educated men, men of all creeds, who held the bal- 
ance of power, and, when they got together, carried the ship 
safely and triumphantly onward. 

It was the ascendancy in 1870 of the liberal and enlight- 
ened spirit of the community that resulted in the election to 
the presidency of Professor Gilman; though the unwar- 
ranted Puritan claim to a victory, made now, and again in 
1872, tended to prejudice his position. The election took 
place on June 21. The letter given below from Edward 
Tompkins to Rev. Dr. H. W. Bellows suggests perhaps the 
way it came about that Professor Gilman was selected. Ed- 
ward Tompkins, whom we shall meet again, was a member 
of the Board of Regents, a State Senator, and an ardent 
friend and advocate of the University. He writes under 
date of June 21 as follows to Dr. Bellows: 



I have but a moment to say that the battle is fought 
and won. Prof. Gilman has this afternoon been elected 



ii 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Pres. of the University of California. Your letter elected 
him, although there were a far greater number for other 
candidates. On what accidents life turns! A place that 
may and ought to be historical, filled by Dr. Thompson's 
dining with you on the day my letter reached you. Now, 
can you not send word to Dr. Thompson at once, so that 
he will make Prof. Gilman's acceptance certain? The Gov- 
ernor will write him to-morrow informing him of his elec- 
tion, and if by any accident he should decline, / should be 
compelled to abscond. I am inexpressibly obliged to you 
for all your interest in this matter. That, and the conscious- 
ness of the influence for good that you have exercised across 
a continent ought to give you one more very pleasant 
memory. 

Governor Haight, ex-officio President of the Board of 
Regents, a man of culture and a wise and enthusiastic friend 
of the University, wrote to Professor Gilman, setting forth 
at length the resources, prospects" and attractions of the 
University, and urging his acceptance of the presidency. 
Professor Kellogg, Dean of the Academic Senate, and 
others interested sent letters expressing their earnest hope 
that he would come. The enthusiastic letter of Mr. Tomp- 
kins has special interest: 

As one of the Regents of the University of California, I 
feel a deep interest in your answer to the invitation to be- 
come its President. As I was the means of bringing your 
name before the Board, I am particularly anxious that an 
unfavorable answer should not be returned, at least until 
the inducements that the position offers are fully understood. 
A note from your brother-in-law, Dr. Thompson, to my 
valued friend Dr. Bellows, was sent me by the latter, speak- 
ing of you in terms that led me to learn all that was in my 
power about you. The result has been to convince me that 
it will be a misfortune to California, and I think to you, if 
you turn away from the opportunity offered you to shape 
and form the educational interests of the Pacific Coast. The 






CALIFORNIA 115 

means are ready to your hand. Neither money nor interest 
in the matter is wanting. All that is needed is a young man, 
devoted and earnest, ready to do his life work in giving 
the best education to the greatest number, and realizing fully 
that his best reputation while he lives, and his noblest monu- 
ment when he is dead, will be best secured, by making the 
University of which he is the first President a grand success. 
I have become satisfied that you can do all this, and so be- 
lieving I am not willing to admit the idea that you can refuse 
to take the lead in so noble a work. Why should you? The 
lowest consideration, money, will not prevent. We pay 
$6,000 gold, to which in due season a house will be added. 
I need not contrast that with any salary paid on your side of 
the continent. The opportunity to do good is vastly greater 
in a new, energetic, enterprising region, poorly supplied with 
means of education, than in an old country where colleges 
and educated men abound. The promise for the future is 
much the greatest on this side of the continent. Where you 
are, suppose you could be President of Yale. You would 
get it only after a controversy with " old fogyism," and you 
would be one of a long line of Presidents. Old ideas, if 
they did not defeat, would fetter and embarrass you. Here, 
you would be the founder of a new dynasty, the first Presi- 
dent, and would forever be " at the head." You would only 
be asked to relieve Regents, who are so hurried that they are 
glad to be let alone, and thus would shape everything to 
suit yourself. I concede all that you will claim for the so- 
ciety and surroundings of New Haven, but the educational 
interests of California are nearly all concentrated at Oak- 
land, a Faculty of a high order is already gathered there, 
and you would soon be in a position to call around you 
the best culture in America. I am many years older than 
you; I know both sides of the continent, and I tell you that 
such an opening for usefulness and reputation does not come 
twice to any man. I pray you to consider well before you 
reject such a certainty for anything in the future. The pres- 
ent we know. The future can only be read by prophets. My 
good friend Prof. Brewer (and yours) will introduce me 
to you. After that, you will excuse and believe me cordially 
your friend. 



n6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






The letters written by Professor Oilman to Governor 
Haight — one an official declination and the other a per- 
sonal note — express his appreciation of the offer and indi- 
cate that his decision to remain in New Haven was brought 
about by a combination of considerations relating to his 
post: in the Scientific School and of personal reasons. His 
reply to Mr. Tompkins was as follows: 

Your kind letter of July 5 almost persuaded me. It led 
me to reconsider all the questions which a decision involved. 
For some days I felt magnetized, and entered with all your 
enthusiasm into the prospects of usefulness which cluster 
around the presidency of such a university. But after all I 
feel constrained to remain here. I am deeply interested in 
the Scientific College of this University, which is now mak- 
ing rapid progress and which seems destined to exert a great 
influence upon the education of the country. I may not be 
of much importance to this movement, but I am deeply in- 
volved in it and greatly interested in it, so that it would be 
very hard for me at present to break away. 

Your confidential tone inspires my confidence, and though 
we are personally strangers I cannot refrain from adding 
a few words respecting another reason which prevents my 
leaving New Haven. The mother of my two little daugh- 
ters was taken away from them a few months ago by death 
and I am not only depressed by the bereavement, but I am 
burdened with the parental responsibility thus thrown upon 
me. I lere I am fortunate however in being surrounded by 
relatives and friends who will aid me in the care of these 
children but from whom I should be widely separated if I 
should go to California. 

I feel desirous of explaining to you one other point. My 
name was suggested to Dr. Bellows in the most accidental 
and unpremeditated way, nor did I know anything of the fact 
until some little time afterward. I had then no idea that it 
would be seriously considered, but I said to Prof. Brewer 
and to others (who made some allusion to the matter) all 
that it would seem proper to say to prevent my being con- 
sidered a candidate. I feel deeply sensible of the honor con- 









CALIFORNIA 117 

ferred upon me and fully appreciative of your interest in 
presenting my name, and I should be very sorry to have you 
think the letters presented in my behalf were directly or in- 
directly sent forward at my instance. 

I am very desirous of seeing California. Our vacation 
has begun, and if I can find company it is possible I may 
make the trip, but simply for my own gratification and in- 
struction. The formal letter which I send herewith to the 
Governor is official and final. 

Your letter draws me strongly toward you. I hope we 
shall meet face to face. But whether we do or not, I beg 
you to be assured of the very high and grateful regard with 
which I remain, etc. 

Upon receiving Professor Gilman's declination, the Re- 
gents elected Professor Durant to the presidency. His 
administration saw both an apparent and a real develop- 
ment within the University, and a spread of its influence 
without. It was not aggressive to attain results and it took 
no positive steps that might arouse direct opposition, but 
nevertheless it firmly held its own as against any active mani- 
festation of hostile forces outside or of disintegrating influ- 
ences within. But along with unquestioned growth of the 
institution and the maintenance of proper standards, there 
went on a steady strengthening of antagonistic elements in 
the community and the formation of parties and cliques 
among Faculty and Regents. 

It could not have been expected by the Regents that Presi- 
dent Durant's administration would be more than tempo- 
rary. Professor Gilman's declination had left them at sea, 
and they turned to the man who was the " logical " first 
President of the University, as well as a person held in uni- 
versal high esteem. Most people in the community were 
gratified that this mark of appreciation had been shown for 
enlightened, persistent and unselfish services in the cause 
of higher education. Infirmities of age telling on him, in 



n8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

the summer of 1872 Dr. Durant insisted that the Regents 
find a new President. After his retirement the people of 
Oakland honored him with the office of mayor, and Presi- 
dent Gilman not only found him a warm and valued friend, 
but took him among the inner circle of his advisers. 

That the retirement of President Durant should have led 
to a renewed effort to secure the services of Professor Gil- 
man is natural enough. Numerous letters and telegrams — 
from the Regents, the Governor of the State, other promi- 
nent citizens and some from personal friends — testify to 
the degree of importance which was attached to his accept- 
ance of the presidency, and the feeling of the large possi- 
bilities which it opened up for the future of the University 
and of the State. Assurances were given of hearty coopera- 
tion; in some of the communications these assurances were 
coupled with references to the peculiar difficulties of the situ- 
ation. The vote in the election for President had been in 
a sense unanimous, the statement made to Professor Gilman 
in the letter announcing it having been as follows: " There 
were seventeen Regents present, and the vote stood twelve 
for you and five blanks. No one but yourself was put in 
nomination and the blank votes were cast in that way be- 
cause of some promises made by those Regents for other 
parties which they did not feel at liberty to disregard." 

The President-elect made a brief visit to California, 
reaching San Francisco at the end of August. From memo- 
randa which he kept of his trip across the continent, we 
learn that he left New Haven on August 10, going to New 
York and thence to Saratoga to see President Andrew D. 
White, and meeting incidentally many other persons of con- 
sequence. At Indianapolis he discussed with Governor 
Baker the plan of Purdue University, the general university 
outlook in Indiana, and the proposed second Morrill bill, 
which was more liberally drawn than the one of 1862, with 



CALIFORNIA 119 

its obligation on the States to sell their scrip. At Urbana 
and Farmers City he discussed with Dr. Gregory and Pro- 
fessor Shattuck the difficulties attendant upon the proper 
conduct of State institutions amid unreasonable popular 
demands and clamors; the question of dormitories and of 
cheap and simple club houses for small groups of students; 
the question of religious services and the moral welfare of 
the students; industrial education and shop work; agricul- 
tural education and instruction in practical farming. In 
Utah he met Brigham Young and many elders and pioneers. 
He arrived in San Francisco about the end of August. 

During his short sojourn he met the Regents, both offi- 
cially and informally, and made the acquaintance of some 
of the more important persons in the vicinity. Professor 
Louis Agassiz had just arrived in San Francisco, and on 
the evening of September 2 was given a reception by the 
Academy of Sciences. Professor George Davidson was 
president of that society. He was Honorary Professor of 
Geodesy and Astronomy in the University, Chief of the 
United States Pacific Coast Survey, and one of the most 
eminent scientists in the State. At a later time he was 
largely influential in determining the direction of James 
Lick's benefactions. On this evening began a firm friend- 
ship between Professor Davidson and the new President of 
the University. President Gilman, being asked to speak, re- 
sponded as follows: 

I cannot but regard it as a most happy omen that the first 
opportunity I have after coming here to take charge of your 
educational institution, of meeting with the citizens of this 
place, is an evening when you are assembled to pay homage 
and render greeting to one who brings the best culture of 
the Old World to bear upon the solution of the great prob- 
lems which appertain to the New, when you are here to greet 
so eminent a man as he who has just addressed you. I can 



120 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAX 

echo his words in a faint way, and take up a few of the 
thoughts he has dropped. He has told you that the museum 
at Cambridge is distinguished as the museum of today. 
Should it not be so with the University ? Should it not be a 
University for the wants of today? Should we not use it 
for the great problems which belong to this generation, for 
the great future that is opening upon us? Should we not all 
unite to gather up the best of the past experience of every 
nation, the accumulations of all men before us, to bring 
them to bear upon our society, and upon, I trust you will 
allow me to say it, our own State of California? One other 
thought I should like to re-echo. Professor Agassiz has told 
you that the great want of science is observers, and the great 
want of society is men. Now, the object of the University 
is to turn out men, not narrow specialists, though they may 
be as eminent as possible in this or that department which 
they may pursue, but men of honest and earnest purpose, 
men of true wisdom, and that is what the University has 
before it. I will not prolong these remarks, but let me trust 
that the true utterances you have heard from the distin- 
guished orator who has spoken to you, that you need an in- 
stitution for today, and an institution for the training of 
men, may sink deep into all your hearts and inspire us all for 
the work which is to come. 

At this time Mr. Tompkins' project of endowing a chair 
in the University was also discussed. The endowment, 
which was formally announced in the Board of Regents on 
September iS, inaugurated the new administration with the 
University's first considerable gift from a private source. 
It expressed Mr. Tompkins' generosity of sentiment, his 
love for the institution, and his confidence in President Gil- 
man. The donation was in the form of a piece of land to be 
sold when it would realize fifty thousand dollars. The 
professorship was to be one of Oriental Languages and 
Literature, and in compliment to the great scientist then 
visiting California, it was to be called the " Agassiz 
Professorship." 



CALIFORNIA 121 

Only one week after President Gilman's inauguration Mr. 
Tompkins suddenly died. President Gilman had said in 
his inaugural address: "It is a praiseworthy forethought 
on the part of one of the Regents which has led him to 
provide among us for the study of Chinese and Japanese. 
His presence here cannot restrain me from rendering a pub- 
lic tribute of gratitude for this wise and timely munificence. 
Let us hope that his generous purposes will, ere long, be 
realized. To complete the instruction in Oriental tongues, 
at least two other chairs will be needed, one to be for 
Hebrew and the Semitic languages, which, perhaps, some 
other citizen will be glad to establish; and one for Sanskrit 
and the comparative philology of Indo-European tongues." 
The development of this donation into a foundation of 
larger scope through the establishment of an Oriental Col- 
lege was a constant thought and endeavor of President Gil- 
man throughout his administration. The interest of Con- 
gress was invoked, a bill was introduced by Senator Sargent, 
and it looked probable for a while that the Japanese In- 
demnity Fund then in the hands of the government might 
be utilized for this purpose. 

The inauguration ceremonies were held in Oakland on 
November 7. The subject of President Gilman's inaugural 
address was " The Building of the University." It ren- 
dered tribute to the men and agencies that had laid the 
foundations of the University, recognized with cordial sym- 
pathy the qualities and tendencies of Californian culture, 
sketched in a comprehensive manner the elements that must 
constitute any modern university, and portrayed the spirit 
that must pervade it. It forecast many of the dangers and 
difficulties that would have to be worked against, defined the 
proper relations of Faculty, Regents and State authorities 
(" Quick to help and slow to interfere," it said, should be 
the watchword of the last), and laid down the lines along 



122 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

which the University must develop if it was to meet the re- 
quirements marked out by the history and prospects of the 
State of California. 

President Gilman had laid out a program, but his pur- 
poses were wider than he had publicly declared. The field 
seemed to be an open one, and in large measure it was co. 
The public was generous in its appreciation, and of a mind 
to be generous in its purse also. The prospect must have 
seemed to him very fair, even alluring — work to be done, 
difficulties to be overcome, a public to be instructed. Only 
two circumstances in the situation were of a really per- 
plexing character. 

The first of these was the presence of a certain amount of 
incompetency and unfitness in the University staff. In so 
small a faculty the presence of two or three professors in 
important posts markedly unfit for their positions or mani- 
festly neglectful of their work would necessarily be a very 
serious drawback. If they were not retained, they would 
become a center of disaffection or demoralization; if they 
were summarily removed, there might result in place of the 
general acclaim a great public outcry, and the whole future 
might be jeopardized in a moment. What the attitude of 
the Regents themselves might be could not be predicted; al- 
together the situation was one in which the path of wisdom 
was difficult to determine. At all events, President Gilman 
took no immediate action. 

The second difficulty lay in the existing relations between 
the President and the Board of Regents. In law, and 
hitherto perhaps in practice also, the president was no 
more to the regents than any individual professor. Shortly 
after President Gilman's accession, the board adopted a 
resolution authorizing the President to participate in its 
deliberations, and making him a member of all committees; 



CALIFORNIA 123 

and a year later a law was passed making him a Regent ex 
officio. But he never had, either by law or understanding, 
any such authority as American university presidents are 
accustomed to exercising. This situation was aggravated by 
the circumstance that the regents as a board were in the 
habit of looking upon the president as the faculty's repre- 
sentative and upon the secretary as their own, and of setting 
these two over against each other. For this condition of 
things, the law was in part responsible; President Holden, 
a dozen years later, used to say that the law had given the 
University three presidents — the president eo nomine, the 
secretary of the regents, and the professor of agriculture. 
During President Gilman's time, it is true, this difficulty 
was minimized by the helpful and sympathetic attitude of 
the secretaries, first Mr. A. J. Moulder, and afterwards Mr. 
R. E. C. Stearns. Nevertheless, the fact remained that 
there was always this potential opposition as between sec- 
retary and president; and, irrespective of the actual at- 
titude of the secretary, the disaffected sought to make him 
or his office a nucleus of discontent, so that almost inevit- 
ably two parties in the faculty and regents were created, one 
centering in the president and the other in the secretary. 

Mr. Gilman, however, did not allow these two difficulties 
to weigh on his mind, but set to work to accomplish his mis- 
sion, the effective building up of the University. 

He began at the bottom. For the first step he took was 
the fundamental one of bringing about a better understand- 
ing, and more cordial and helpful relations, between the 
common schools and the University. He found ready co- 
operation in the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
an exceptionally well-qualified man, H. W. Bolander. The 
President of the University and the State Superintendent 
called a conference of University men and teachers in the 
public schools. The drift of President Gilman's address 



i2 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

and of the discussions was that there ought to be a vital 
connection between the schools and the University, a per- 
fect gradation on from the primary school, one system with 
manifold adaptations. This conference was followed up 
on the part of President Gilman by addresses at high school 
exercises, by correspondence and conversation with school 
men throughout the State, and it never lost its effect until 
the State Constitution as revised in 1879 deprived the high 
schools of State aid and caused demoralization in Califor- 
nian education. The work had then to be done over along 
other lines. 

The foundation of the Berkeley Club, an organization 
which still flourishes, was another thing that engaged Mr. 
Gilman's attention in the early months of his presidency. Its 
seventeen original members were a picked body, including 
ministers, lawyers, journalists and merchants, as well as pro- 
fessors and regents of the University. At a memorial meet- 
ing of the Club in honor of Mr. Gilman, Rev. John 
Knox McLean, President of the Pacific Theological Semi- 
nary, the only survivor of the seventeen, thus characterized 
Mr. Gilman's influence in the creation and maintenance of 
the Club : 

Without his initiative it could never have come into exist- 
ence ; without his fostering care it could never have become a 
permanency. The history of the Club illustrates what ap- 
pears to me one of President Gilman's strongest points. . . . 
He was endowed with an extraordinarily sharp, quick and 
unerring discernment, first of measures and men, and next of 
ways and means, not merely as to things in themselves, nor 
yet as to their latent values — he had all that, and more. 
With it all was allied the more fruitful sense of how to ex- 
tract those values, and how, once extracted, to set them into 
active productiveness. He seemed to grasp the whole at 
once, at a glance, — the metal in the rock, the particular 
mode of extracting that special grade or class of metal, of 






CALIFORNIA 125 

handling it when extracted, with also the ability to set in 
motion the required means to bring out a final, finished 
product, and not stopping there, but also to set the tide of 
this final product at earning its own daily bread. 

The grand incitement with him to the creation of the Club 
at the time this was founded lay not at all in purposes of 
mere entertainment, good fellowship, relaxation, not merely 
as a place and medium for the exchange of ideas and the 
elucidation of great themes and thoughts. He wanted it 
just then for a far more concrete purpose, and to those who 
stood nearest he made no secret of the fact. He wanted 
it as an implement, an engine, an apparatus, of which he 
stood at that particular time in great need. ... In every 
reference to that period of his experience he has uniformly, 
in speech or letter, as no doubt to others beside myself, 
spoken in warm appreciation of the succor received at a time 
of need through the Berkeley Club. 

From some of the other addresses at the Berkeley Club 
memorial meeting may be drawn remarks bearing on the 
impression which Mr. Gilman's personality made at this 
time : 

His walk, quick and springy, was that of a man who 
knew where he was going and what he was going for. A 
quick movement of the lower lip and the restlessness of the 
dark eyes indicated an alertness not usual in the college 
man. 

His coming produced an immediate effect upon the col- 
lege community and upon the public. There was a conta- 
gious enthusiasm about him. He was indefatigable, never 
sparing himself in setting the tasks designed for the advance- 
ment of the institution committed to his care. He was a 
very affable man and most pleasantly approachable to 
faculty and students alike, and displayed a rare tact in all 
his intercourse. He sought to be intimately friendly with 
all, and to assist and help forward every wise and approved 
activity. He was a keen judge of character, and delighted 
to discover in young men latent capacities often unknown 



126 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

to themselves, and it gave him the keenest pleasure to put 
stimulating opportunities in their way, and then stand aside 
and watch them grow. The story of the useful lives thus 
stimulated by his influence in all parts of our country is an- 
other proof that the good he did lives after him. 

Another subject that claimed the President's attention 
was the matter of professional education. There were no 
professional schools yet organized in connection with the 
University. The need of them was foreshadowed in the 
inaugural address. Before the end of his administration he 
hoped he had started the way for a law school. The im- 
mediate opportunity presented was the addition of a medical 
department. 

In 1864 Dr. H. H. Toland had founded in San Fran- 
cisco a medical school, giving it a valuable piece of land and 
a suitable building. On April 1,-1873, after negotiations 
between the Trustees of the Toland Medical College and the 
University Regents, a plan of affiliation was adopted. 
There was another medical college in San Francisco, and 
efforts had been made to combine the two into one strong 
school, but personal jealousies prevented this. Thus two 
imperfect medical schools occupied the field, and, as Presi- 
dent Gilman said in his report in 1875, the " medical depart- 
ment was left behind the other departments of the Univer- 
sity, in its standard and requirements for admission, when 
it should be decidedly in advance." One of the things that 
might have been accomplished if President Gilman had 
remained in California was the ultimate uniting of these 
two institutions into one powerful and commanding medical 
school. Combination, concentration, avoidance of useless 
expenditure of energy, one strong instead of several weak de- 
partments or institutions : such were words or thoughts con- 
stantly recurrent with President Gilman. What was the 
Toland Medical College has now, in the course of years, 



CALIFORNIA 127 

become a progressive and efficient department of the Uni- 
versity of California; and what was the Cooper Medical 
College has become a similar department of the Leland Stan- 
ford Junior University. 

President Gilman effected the affiliation of the California 
College of Pharmacy with the University, and advocated the 
organization of a College of Dentistry, which was effected 
a few years after his departure. 

Then came the need of preparation for removal to 
Berkeley. The University still occupied the old college 
buildings in Oakland. The situation was very unsatis- 
factory. While the buildings were well enough adapted 
for recitations and lectures, for work in science they were 
entirely unfitted. It would be a thankless task to spend 
money if he had it, or to ask for money either from the 
Legislature or from men of wealth, for the purpose of equip- 
ping laboratories in temporary buildings four or five miles 
away from the permanent site of the University. The ar- 
dent wish of President Gilman was, therefore, to hasten the 
day when the University should find its abiding dwelling- 
place at Berkeley. The earliest date possible was the open- 
ing of the academic year in September, 1873. Every effort 
was made to bring this about. 

The future home of the University and its name were 
thus referred to in the inaugural address : 

You have inherited, also, a good site at Berkeley. When 
I first stood at Berkeley, and looked at the mountains and 
the bay, the town and the distant glimpses of the open sea, 
I recalled an hour under the elms at New Haven, more than 
two years ago, when I listened to the story of how this spot 
was chosen, of the rides and walks which were directed by 
an observing eye over the hills and into the valleys of this 
charming region, with prophetic anticipation of the coming 
day when the college germ, already planted, would require 
a site worthy of its growth. . . . 



128 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

I hail it as an omen of good, both for religion and learn- 
ing, that the site of this University bears the name of Berke- 
ley, the scholar and the divine. It is not yet a century and 
a half since that romantic voyage which brought to Newport, 
in Rhode Island, an English prelate, who would found a 
college in the Bermudas, the Sandwich Islands of the At- 
lantic, for the good of the American aborigines. He failed 
in seeing his enthusiastic purpose accomplished. He could 
not do as he would; he therefore did as he could. He gave 
the Puritan College, in New Haven, a library and a farm, 
and endowed it in prizes and scholarships which still incite 
to the learning of Latin. There, his memory is " ever kept 
green." His name is given to a School of Divinity in the 
neighboring city of Middletown. It is honored in Dublin 
and Oxford, and in Edinburgh, where his memoirs have just 
been written. His fame has crossed the continent, which 
then seemed hardly more than a seaboard of the Atlantic; 
and now, at the very ends of the earth, near the Golden 
Gate, the name of Berkeley is to be a household word. Let 
us emulate his example. In the catholic love of learning, if 
we cannot do what we would, let us do what we can. Let 
us labor and pray that his well-known vision may be 
true: 

" Westward the course of empire takes its way; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

The Legislature had made an appropriation of three hun- 
dred thousand dollars for buildings at Berkeley. The larger 
portion of this was contracted for in the construction of the 
building first known as the College of Agriculture, later 
as South Hall. Another building would be necessary before 
the University could be moved. How to get it by September, 
1873, and for the amount of money in hand, less than one 
hundred thousand dollars, was a serious problem. The Re- 
gents agreed with President Gilman that the second build- 



CALIFORNIA 129 

ing must be constructed, and it was decided to build it of 
wood, instead of granite and brick, the materials of South 
Hall. One of the Regents, Dr. Samuel Merritt, a wealthy 
citizen of Oakland, and the owner of a large lumber con- 
cern, offered to expedite matters by ordering lumber in 
advance, and promised to return to the University all profits 
on the material used that should come through him. He 
was, besides, a practical builder and architect. Expense 
could be saved by his drawing the plans and specifications, 
and by his directing the construction, with the advice of 
President Gilman as to interior arrangement. This course 
was pursued, and within ninety-nine working days the build- 
ing at first known as the College of Letters, later as 
North Hall, was completed. The designation of these 
buildings as " Colleges " was resisted by President Gilman 
at the time and was a source of no little acrimony of dis- 
cussion. The mere attention to matters connected with the 
construction of North Hall, four miles distant from the 
University, kept the President busy. 

The corner-stone of North Hall was laid early in May; 
and on July 16, 1873, Commencement exercises, marking 
the close of President Gilman's first year, were held in the 
still unfinished building. The graduating class had been in 
peculiarly close personal relations with President Gilman 
and had pursued two courses of study, Political Economy 
and Physical Geography, under his instruction. The Com- 
mencement exercises were of unusual interest. While some 
of the addresses breathed the feeling of aspiration for a 
high future for the University, others centered about the 
name of Bishop Berkeley, a copy of whose portrait at Yale 
College was presented to the University by Mr. Frederick 
Billings of Vermont, formerly a Trustee of the College of 
California. President Gilman's address to the graduating 
class closed with these words : 



i 3 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

With these external rites, let us strive to perpetuate the 
old spirit of the scholar, the spirit of labor and self-sacri- 
fice, the love of learning and culture, the desire to gather up 
the spirit of the past for the benefit of the future. With 
this high commission, the University sends you forth the 
first of its four-year classes. You are twelve in number, — 
be jurors, sworn to declare the truth as you find it; be apos- 
tles, bearing everywhere the Master's lessons. Young gen- 
tlemen, as we part, I invoke upon you the blessing of Al- 
mighty God; I bid you welcome to the responsibilities and 
the opportunities of educated men; I warn you against dis- 
honesty, selfishness and sloth; and in the name of this band 
of instructors, who have watched for four years the unfold- 
ing of your characters, and who will ever be your friends, I 
bid you, with mingled hopes and fears, an affectionate 
farewell. 



These public exercises, although a Presbyterian minister 
made an opening prayer and closing benediction, and al- 
though the President specially invoked the blessing of Al- 
mighty God, and although the Episcopal Bishop of Cali- 
fornia had given an inspiring address to " commemorate the 
devotion of the Bishop of Cloyne to the cause of education 
and religion," were nevertheless misrepresented by a Protes- 
tant minister through the press of the United States as an 
occasion at which "the name of God was not spoken; no 
prayer was offered; nor was any reference made in any of 
the young men's speeches to moral or religious ideas. Now, 
even an atheist does not desire his boy to be trained a ma- 
terialist." The article was so grossly untrue that President 
Gilman issued a published statement in correction. 

The charter of the University contemplated the organiza- 
tion of distinct " colleges " of Agriculture, Mechanics, Min- 
ing, Civil Engineering, Chemistry and Letters, each with its 
own faculty, but with all the faculties combined into one 
Academic Senate. A fully developed College of Letters 



CALIFORNIA 131 

had been Inherited from the College of California, so that 
when instruction began under the auspices of the University 
in 1869, there were four classes ready to pursue the clas- 
sical course. Some means for carrying on this department, 
besides direct State appropriations for the University at 
large, had come from the College of California. But at 
most only the first year of an agricultural or other scientific 
college could readily be set in motion. Nor would there be, 
according to the scheme deemed wisest, much difference be- 
tween the several scientific courses either in the Freshman 
or the Sophomore year. No income was as yet available 
from the land scrip. An impartial carrying out of the pre- 
scriptions of the Organic Act had been attempted by the 
Regents. 

The University had been in operation three years when 
President Gilman was placed in charge. He found already 
developed much agitation and criticism because of the alleged 
neglect of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the two de- 
partments more especially mentioned in the Morrill Act of 
1862. The more partisan advocates spoke of them as ex- 
clusively mentioned in the Morrill Act, and even went so far 
as to say that they were the sole object of the State legisla- 
tion which established the University. Before President 
Gilman's arrival, Dr. John Le Conte had been appointed 
Professor of Physics and Mechanics, and the College of 
Mechanics had been nominally set up; but only nominally, 
because Professor Le Conte's lectures were in the domain of 
theoretical science, and had little to do with mechanics as 
applied to engineering and nothing with industrial processes. 
It was not practicable to organize the work along these lines, 
nor was money available for the necessary apparatus. The 
College of Civil Engineering was recognized contempo- 
raneously with President Gilman's election by the appoint- 



132 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ment of Professor Soule to the chair of Civil Engineering. 
The College of Chemistry came into being at the same time 
by the arrival of Professor Willard B. Rising. No real at- 
tempt had been made to organize the College of Mining. 
Little popular attention, however, was paid to scientific de- 
partments other than Agriculture and Mechanics, and most 
of the clamor came from partisans of agriculture, they tak- 
ing up the cause of the neglected technical mechanical 
courses. Defense was strong and valid on the part of the 
Regents, but of course it was not listened to by those not 
disposed to do so. 

President Gilman spoke earnestly and eloquently in his 
inaugural address on the subject of scientific and technical 
education. " Science, though yet you have built no shrine 
for her worship," he said, " was the mother of California," 
and he declared his " chief anxiety " to be " whether the 
people of this coast are yet ready to pay for the luxury and 
the advantage of such serviceable institutions. It will require 
a great many teachers, costly laboratories, large funds — 
more, I fear, than the University, with all the claims upon 
its treasury, is yet able to command." 

The subject of technical education was frequently pre- 
sented throughout his administration by President Gilman 
in public lectures, beginning with one on that topic before 
the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco on January 4, 
1873, and one a few weeks later in Sacramento entitled 
" What shall we do with our Boys? " It was a subject of 
constant thought and planning with him how to effect a 
University organization that would meet both scientific and 
vocational needs, and also to build up more strictly technical 
or trade schools of a lower grade. One of the most intel- 
ligent and enthusiastic champions of polytechnic instruction 
was Andrew S. Hallidie, President of the Mechanics' In- 
stitute and Regent of the University. Every movement in 




DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

At the Age of Forty-three 



CALIFORNIA 133 

this direction for more than thirty years had his hearty 
support, and the successful ones, if not initiated by him, 
owed their success to him. He and President Gilman were 
in full accord on the subject. By the beginning of 1874 
President Gilman had the outline of a technical school in 
San Francisco ready, and $15,000 a year for two years 
guaranteed to carry it on, Mr. Hallidie being one of the 
chief backers. But the will of James Lick providing a large 
bequest for such an institution chilled the enthusiasm of some 
of the subscribers, and this particular project came to naught. 
But in later years James Lick's endowment, and another by 
J. C. Wilmerding, provided San Francisco with efficient 
schools along the lines which President Gilman had laid 
down. 

As to agriculture, there was no one better able to give it its 
proper place in the University scheme. But it was a sub- 
ject on which a judicial and well-balanced statement was 
not acceptable. President Gilman met here, as on most 
questions of University organization, the discouraging fact 
that very few persons in the community comprehended in 
any degree, as he did fully, the whole round of University 
work. There was indeed a large body of intelligent per- 
sons who were willing to leave the matter to the President 
of the University, whom they recognized to be a man of 
abundant ideas and of a well-defined policy. But their sup- 
port, while it could be counted on, was naturally silent, while 
the persons who took partial views, advocates of agricultural 
education in a purely practical direction, or of trade schools, 
or of a classical college, were outspoken, even to the extent 
of being clamorous and abusive. He solved this problem 
of agricultural education, as he solved all like problems, as 
soon as he got the opportunity, by appointing the man head 
of the Department of Agriculture who would develop the 
work, on the right lines and in connection with the whole 



i 3 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

University, so thoroughly and so adequately that his course 
of action would in the end justify itself to all. 

The first year was drawing to a close with happiest re- 
sults. But the seeds of the really malignant disease had 
not been touched, perhaps the condition had not been 
clearly diagnosed; and a feverish condition of the atmos- 
phere was now setting in, making an effective operation 
dangerous. 

An excellent summary of the character of President Gil- 
man as an administrator is given in the following extract 
from an editorial article in the Overland Monthly for July, 
1873, entitled " The Gain of a Man ": 

There are some men who have a talent for turning every- 
thing touched into gold. All ventures turn out profitably. 
There is a better gift than this. It is the half-unconscious 
power of influencing other men to bestow their wealth wisely 
and beneficently — the faculty of enlisting the interest of 
others in a good cause. When the University of California 
found such a man, it was started on a new career of pros- 
perity. There was no perfunctory begging to be done — no 
preachments about the value of a liberal education, and no 
poor face to make up. Busy men lent a willing ear when 
there were a few quiet utterances to be made from a full 
and generous mind. It never seemed so good and grand a 
thing before to put broad shoulders to this and that plan for 
helping the University, and to push these plans up to a suc- 
cessful termination. A suggestion dropped here and there 
wisely was enough. A strong man, who puts his soul into 
the work, carries with him the inspiration of hopefulness. 
Everybody else is made hopeful; and out of this spring 
plans, suggestions, and quiet benefactions. It is a rare gift, 
that of touching the best springs of other natures at the right 
moment, and to follow this with the right suggestion, so 
that neither more nor less ought to be said or done. We 
have not had a " melting season " yet. But the hearts of 
many have warmed toward the University as never before. 
Perhaps the President could not explain how men have been 



CALIFORNIA 135, 

drawn to him as the head of the institution, neither is it 
necessary now. The fact is better than the explanation. 



The University began its instruction at Berkeley in 
September, 1873. From a physical point of view things 
were pretty well disorganized. The only communication 
with Oakland was by horse cars, and with San Francisco via 
Oakland. There were not sufficient accommodations at 
Berkeley for the students in the way of boarding-places, 
and no residences for the professors, all of whom continued 
for a while to live in Oakland. In January, 1873, President 
Gilman gave a public lecture in the Congregational Church 
in Oakland on " Berkeley: The Bishop and the Site of the 
University." He took advantage of the occasion to give 
his views upon the proper laying out of the college city and 
the necessity of providing it with all the resources needed 
by the most advanced communities. He advised a proper 
regard for the topographical features of the landscape, pre- 
serving and utilizing the irregularities of the surface. He 
would have carriage ways, roads for equestrians, and broad 
areas of approach. He would like to see a commodious 
hotel, with restaurant attached that would provide meals for 
families. He hoped for all of the social attractions which 
would draw thither an intelligent and refined population. 
He closed his address with an appeal for the popular encour- 
agement of the University. " The State has dealt liberally, 
the government has been generous, and one individual has 
donated nobly, but the needs of the institution are great, and 
some wealthy citizens have money to spare." He pictured 
a bright future for Berkeley, and for the young and giant 
State on the Pacific. 

This autumn of 1873 was full of the most cheering 
promise. So many of the students as lived at Berkeley, 
whether continuously or from Monday to Friday, had a real 



136 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

college life, the most intimate ever enjoyed in California. 
They came to know the Faculty better, as one by one the 
professors took up their residence at Berkeley; they were 
brought into close association with the President in one way 
or another. His optimistic spirit pervaded the whole body. 
Never had a President more cordial support from the stu- 
dents in the promotion of his ideas. They were in his con- 
fidence, but not in a way to exclude the Faculty. All acted 
together in one family relation of mutual dependence. Too 
much emphasis cannot be laid upon this unity of interest and 
sentiment which President Gilman fostered in the University 
community. He was head of the family, but there were no 
favorites. The President needed but one introduction to 
know a person ever after. There was never any hesitation 
or slip in addressing a student by his right name. Every 
student he knew personally. He conducted classes this year 
in political economy and physical geography, the next year 
in political economy and history. Whatever the subject, it 
had the widest import in respect to all human relations. 
There was never a lecture that did not bring forth some vital 
suggestion. Resort to the library was stimulated, and it was 
now for the first time used for purposes of research. Many 
a student was led to find here the real intellectual life of the 
University. And many a student got his first real impulse 
to the more absorbing purposes of his life from these lec- 
tures, so informal and so suggestive, or from personal inter- 
views with President Gilman. 

At the Friday afternoon assemblies, members of the 
Faculty gave addresses, and persons prominent in the State 
or from abroad were frequently heard. Newton Booth, 
Governor and later United States Senator, F. F. Low, for- 
mer Governor and United States Minister in China, Presi- 
dent Miner of Tufts College, Professor Bessey of Ames, 
Iowa, Professor Brewer of New Haven, Rev. Dr. Stebbins, 



CALIFORNIA 137 

Unitarian minister in San Francisco and University Regent, 
Rev. Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, were among 
the speakers on various occasions. The meeting at which 
Charles Kingsley spoke was the most memorable of these 
early occasions at Berkeley. It was frequently recalled by 
President Gilman in after years. The simplicity and sin- 
cerity of his greeting to those who were living in this " world 
beyond the world," as he expressed it, touched the heart 
of the University community. The name of " Berkeley " 
given to the college settlement started him on an enthusi- 
astic prophecy for a society inspired with such idealism as to 
couple this name with its University. " If he could see a 
school of Berkeleyan philosophy founded on this side of the 
continent, he would think that California had done a great 
deal for the human race, — a great deal for Europe as well 
as for America." When no one else was available, or when 
the promised speaker failed, President Gilman himself 
filled the hour, out of the abundant resources of his experi- 
ence or from the overflowing treasury of his plans and 
projects. Or it might be that he kept a Friday afternoon 
especially for himself, when he had some particular news to 
communicate or some message to deliver. 

A meeting in November, 1873, is particularly remem- 
bered when he gave an address on " What Eastern Colleges 
are Doing," being a report as it were of his recent vacation 
observations. He discussed first the extraordinary munifi- 
cence of wealthy men toward institutions of higher learning. 
" This munificence is without parallel in any other country, 
and unequalled in any age. It is spreading from man to 
man and from State to State, and appears to delight the 
givers as much as the recipients, for the givers, in many 
cases, have duplicated and triplicated and multiplied with- 
out stint their donations, finding their reward in the grati- 
tude of their fellow-men, and in the satisfaction of seeing the 



138 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

rising generations trained and educated by the best methods 
of the best minds." He dwelt on the growing tendency to 
concentrate institutions of learning of various kinds in one 
neighborhood, and under some bond of union or affiliation, 
by which each might strengthen every other. This was a 
favorite theme, and he had many forcible illustrations to 
present. " It is most desirable that this, our State, so full 
of intelligence and enterprise, so quick to copy what is good 
elsewhere, and to devise new and good things for herself, 
will recognize the wisdom of concentration, and will unite 
around the University of the State, as the nucleus to which 
may be added all the manifold appliances and devices of 
modern higher education." He then spoke of the bold and 
steady modifications in plans of instruction that were going 
on, corresponding on the one hand with the advances of 
modern science, and on the other with the requirements of 
different mental proclivities, and with the different life-pur- 
poses among the students. Of course, he was in the heartiest 
accord with this tendency, and was one of its chief pro- 
moters. And, again, he touched upon another of his prin- 
ciples of education when he said: " It is interesting to 
notice the increasing importance attached to the eye as the 
portal of the brain. The ear is not regarded with any less 
respect because the eye is receiving more consideration, but 
both eye and ear are simultaneously and equally employed." 
He did not on this occasion speak of the education of the 
hand, but the text of a portion of an address some years 
later at the Teachers' College of Columbia University, 
" The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of 
thee," was the subject of frequent lectures in California. 
This Berkeley lecture in November, 1873, he closed by say- 
ing: " The last point to which I call attention is this, that 
everywhere the real efficiency of a college is admitted to con- 
sist, not chiefly in buildings nor in sites, nor in apparatus, 



CALIFORNIA 139 

but in the number and character of the teachers who are em- 
ployed. It is the large and well-qualified staff of instruc- 
tion which makes Harvard so great. It is money to secure 
more teachers which the University of California requires." 
The history, institutions and achievements of California 
made a very strong appeal to him. He entered with en- 
thusiasm into whatever concerned the people of the State. 
In his inaugural address he had referred to the scientific and 
literary work accomplished in California in the following 
appreciative passages : 

Besides, we must not fail to note that a vast amount of 
scientific and literary work, of a very high order, has been 
performed in California, — good, not only in itself, but as 
the seed-corn of future harvests. The work of the United 
States Coast Survey on the Pacific, for example, . . . has 
gained renown for California science, not in our own coun- 
try only, but in Europe, and has helped prepare the way for 
a complete triangulation of the national territory. . . . 
There is the Geological Survey of the State, which surpasses 
in thoroughness and completeness any like undertaking in 
the country, and is the delight and pride of all men of science 
who take an interest in the accurate and careful investiga- 
tion of the natural characteristics of the land, either for its 
own sake, or regarded as a basis for social and political 
growth. . . . Binding all the men of science together as a 
brotherhood of scholars is the Academy of Sciences, whose 
publications and collections are already of great value. A 
young society which has done so well will be an important 
supporter of the young University. . . . 

Moreover, the literature of this coast possesses, like the 
fruits here growing, a richness and flavor of its own, so that 
some have even said that California alone of all parts of the 
land has made quite new and original contributions to Ameri- 
can letters. The humor, the wit and the poetry of the 
Sierras are fresh as the breezes of the hill-tops, and as spicy 
as the groves of pine. Oratory has here spoken with a 
patriotic voice, the echoes of which are still floating in the 



i 4 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

air. To foster your literature, there is a journal whose fame 
has gone over land and over seas as well, the encourager, 
the suggester, and the producer of much that is choice and 
enduring. 

The spirit of the place got firmer hold of him as he dwelt 
longer in California. He took part in the activities of the 
community. He was a constant attendant at scientific meet- 
ings. He stimulated scientific research outside the Univer- 
sity as well as inside. " University extension " found in him 
a living, active prototype. Literary men and literary jour- 
nals were cheered by his voice of encouragement. He was 
quick to recognize in Edward R. Sill, then a teacher in the 
Oakland high school, the spirit of the true poet and man of 
letters. He first invited him to become a charter member of 
the Berkeley Club, where not only his delicate and fertile 
literary fancy would add to the general enjoyment, but the 
soundness and suggestiveness of his counsel would be of 
great value. As soon as there was a fitting vacancy, he 
added Sill's name to the roll of the Faculty. Numerous 
slight events might be mentioned, such as the occasion when 
the President laid before the University community the 
manuscript and proof-sheets of Bret Harte's " Heathen 
Chinee," the gift of Mr. John H. Carmany of the Overland 
Monthly. He pointed to the fact that it was the breath of 
California that Bret Harte breathed. California is not 
wholly or even essentially given over to the pursuit of ma- 
terial fortunes; it has an intellectual atmosphere; its spirit 
is idealistic. Let us cherish its literature; what has been 
done is good; it is full of promise for the future. 

In the matter of art he was not less enthusiastic than in 
that of literature. He wanted the art that had been achieved 
recognized and the artists rewarded, and he wanted art 
to be fostered and developed in the future. Virgil Wil- 
liams and other artists of the day were brought to Berkeley 



CALIFORNIA 141 

and introduced to the University community. He laid plans 
for the affiliation of the San Francisco School of Design 
and the Art Association with the University, a project many 
years later accomplished. 

He foresaw possible relations of great value that might 
be established between California and the shores of the 
Pacific Ocean, whether American, Asiatic or on the islands 
of the sea. He wished the University to play the leading 
part in this as in all matters pertaining to the progress of 
California. Speaking on this subject in his inaugural ad- 
dress, he said: 

The possible relations of this University to the new civili- 
zation of the Pacific Coast, and to the enlightenment of 
Asiatic nations, give a special interest to its work, for it is ob- 
vious that California is not only granary, treasury and mart 
for the American States that are growing up on this coast, 
but it is the portal through which the Occident and Orient 
must exchange their products and their thoughts. China 
and Japan, Australia and the Islands of the Sea, are the 
neighbors and customers of the Golden State. Shall they 
not also look here for instruction in the arts and sciences, 
and for an example of a well-organized and well-educated 
community? . . . We cannot be too quick to prepare for 
the possible future which may open upon us. 

During the administration of President Gilman the in- 
crease of public interest in the University was indicated by 
many gifts and bequests, which may strike us to-day as of 
minor importance, but which were significant in the day of 
small things. In an address to the Legislature in January, 
1874, when he had been in office little more than a year, he 
stated that the University had since his accession received 
gifts amounting to about $190,000. Besides the gifts actu- 
ally made to the University during Mr. Gilman's presi- 
dency, other important contributions to its development were 



i 4 2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

planned for the future; in this category belongs, above all, 
the formation of the Lick Educational Trust, including pro- 
vision for the great Observatory, which was to become the 
Astronomical Department of the University. 



In the meanwhile political developments were taking place 
which were destined to make very difficult the task of carry- 
ing on the University upon liberal lines. The contest for su- 
premacy between the two leading national parties had for 
years been very close in California, and in the early seven- 
ties opposition to government subsidies to railroad corpora- 
tions had become a leading issue between them. In 1873 
there arose a new party, known under the name of Patrons 
of Husbandry or Grangers, which drew from the two his- 
toric parties and attracted all the dissatisfied elements of 
society. It made special affiliations with associations of me- 
chanics. Its chief objects of attack were excessive rates of 
railroad freights and fares and extravagant expenditures 
of public money; and it was ready to bring, without much 
discrimination or scruple, charges of waste and corruption 
against any public institution. It soon formed an alliance 
with a faction of the Republican party, the composite organi- 
zation being known officially as the People's Independent 
Party. Because of the ill-assorted character of its demands, 
and more especially of its diverse or parti-colored make-up, 
it was popularly known as the Dolly Varden party. 

The new party won a decisive victory in the legislative 
election of 1873 over the Democrats and straight Republi- 
cans. At the session of the resulting Legislature the pro- 
ceedings were determined to an unusual degree by members 
of inferior quality and ability, the noisier leaders overcom- 
ing the arguments of the abler men, though these sometimes 
turned the current of events when the agitators had ex- 
hausted themselves with bluster. A large number of public 



CALIFORNIA 143 

institutions or public enterprises were made objects of un- 
friendly investigation, with little regard to their real char- 
acter and conduct. Political capital, to be derived from be- 
smirching the character and acts of the professional and 
capitalist classes, was often the end really in view; and 
another object was the punishment of any institution which 
had failed to conform to the regulations of the labor 
organizations. 

During the early autumn of 1873 the California State 
Grange and the Mechanics' Deliberative Assembly appointed 
committees to examine into University affairs and recom- 
mend appropriate legislation. A memorial was addressed 
to the Legislature directed towards an increase of " prac- 
tical " instruction in the College of Agriculture and Me- 
chanics, and the substitution of an elective board for the ap- 
pointed Regents. 

Information on the subject of the controversy which is 
now beginning to take shape is supplied by the following let- 
ter from Regent John W. Dwindle to President Gilman, 
dated December 13, 1873: 

Permit me to say, in a hurried manner, a few things ger- 
mane to the subject-matter of our late correspondence. 

Professor Bolander came down from Sacramento with 
me last evening. I had a free conversation with him on that 
topic. He told me that Professor Carr had said that he 
meant to compel the Regents, by outside pressure, to let him 
have his own way. I think Mr. Bolander said that Professor 
Carr said this to him. He also said that Professor Carr's 
notions had been tried and rejected in Europe. Professor 
Bolander is good authority on these points, both as being 
German born and in part educated; as being a highly es- 
teemed botanist; and virtute officii, as Superintendent. 

I don't think we should let the matter lie as it is. The 
joint committee of the Grangers and Mechanics show by 
the letter which you sent me several things, among others: 



i 4 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

1. That they have agreed to recommend several things 
(they have not consulted the Regents about them) ; 

2. That they think the courses of the University are not 
practical enough; 

3. That they think that the College of Letters is favored 
at the expense of the technical colleges; 

4. That they think the land fund was especially devoted 
to agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

They evidently think that they have all the information 
they need, and have no suspicion that it came from a par- 
tisan source, nor that it may all be literally true, but in fact 
all false. They were directed by their respective associa- 
tions to " examine and ascertain," and think that they have 
done so. 

I suggest that they be addressed in some form, to the fol- 
lowing purport : 

That we are glad to learn that such committees had been 
appointed, for it had been a cause of chagrin to us that the 
public had not taken interest enough in our work to subject 
it to thorough and impartial scrutiny. That when we learned 
that such committees had been appointed, we appointed two 
committees to meet them, and assist them in their inquiries 
and examinations, leaving them to form their own conclu- 
sions, and announce the result. That in particular we de- 
sired our financial operations and condition to be examined, 
for on that depends the very existence as well as the useful- 
ness of the institution; and the appropriations would also 
show whether or not the intentions of Congress and of the 
Legislature had been loyally carried out. That we were 
anxious that our committees should be put in communication 
with theirs at an early day. . . . 

These are hints of what is floating in my brain, but only 
floating: non expressa signa sed adumbrata. 

A special circumstance served greatly to increase the dif- 
ficulties of the situation. The lecture hall at Berkeley, at 
first known as the " College of Letters," had been con- 
structed under conditions already set forth. A State law 
provided for an eight-hour day in all public work. Another 



CALIFORNIA 145 

law required all public buildings to be constructed by day's 
labor, and prohibited contracts therefor. In 1872 a law was 
passed exempting buildings to be erected for the University 
from the operation of laws applying to State buildings in 
general. The Regents construed, or assumed, this to be an 
exemption from the eight-hour law as well as from the day's 
labor law, and acted accordingly in the erection of the Col- 
lege of Letters. No one, until late in the ensuing investi- 
gation, questioned the correctness of the Regents' interpre- 
tation of the law. The only accusation on this score was that 
they had, as a matter of fact, required ten hours' work a day. 
In 1872 Henry George became editor of the San Fran- 
cisco Daily Evening Post. He had previously for a short 
time had editorial charge of a newspaper in Oakland, where, 
his biographer tells us, he " made the acquaintance of Wil- 
liam Swinton, brother of John Swinton, the well-known 
radical of New York. . . . He (William Swinton) was a 
man of wide reading in the field of belles-lettres, of quick 
mind, fine taste and copious suggestiveness; and though 
sprung from and following the schools, formed a close 
affinity with this young editor, who could not boast of ever 
having had any college connections. Then and in the years 
following Swinton drew George out and encouraged him to 
aim at the higher domain of literature." George was, in 
the words of his biographer, now " beginning to think 
clearly on the great social as well as the great political ques- 
tions." He had certain economic, social and political ob- 
jects in view, and he struck out boldly to attain them, but 
sometimes blindly, and frequently in a way that was mis- 
directed and prejudiced. In December, 1871, he denounced 
a movement then on foot in Washington to pass a new land 
endowment act for colleges. In November, 1872, an edi- 
torial on " Agricultural Land Scrip " said that " one of the 
worst acts ever passed by Congress was the Agricultural Col- 



i 4 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

lege Act. This act has been a popular one, owing to the 
dense ignorance of the American people on all economic 
subjects, and their habit of regarding the public land as sur- 
plus property possessing an intrinsic value of its own, and 
Congress as a grand almoner, which in such gifts as these 
draws upon some mysterious fund belonging to nobody in 
particular, instead of upon the earnings of the workers of 
the country." He never tired of this topic. In January, 
1872, he said: " The original idea was that the University 
should be a college of industry. ... It was under this pre- 
tense that the land grants were made which have proved 
such a curse to California, and it was for this purpose that 
the State has made such large donations. But the Regents, 
to whose care the institution was intrusted, have perverted 
the University from its original design into a college of the 
classics and polite learning." When he could no longer 
shelter himself under the claim of a " perversion " of the 
University, he called for a statutory destruction of all parts 
of the institution except the College of Agriculture and 
Mechanic Arts. He was now influenced by Professor Carr, 
or by Professor Swinton acting in behalf of Professor Carr 
and against the administration of the University, and by the 
Grangers and Mechanics. On December 9, 1873, he said 
in the editorial correspondence of the Post from Sacra- 
mento: " Investigations, this session, will be the order of 
the day. Among other things, an investigation will be made 
into the management of the State University, which, it is 
said, is unnecessarily expensive. There are also rumors that 
some of the Regents have profited by their connection with 
the institution." On January 6, 1874, he published a sen- 
sational editorial on the University, making allegations of 
" fraud and corruption " in the construction of the College 
of Letters and urging the Legislature to investigate. Later 
he gave advice as to the composition of the investigating 






CALIFORNIA 147 

committee. On January 20 he had an editorial headed 
"Boss Merritt: Biggest Fraud on Record." On January 
22, in discussing the " swindle," he said, " considering the 
character of the parties implicated, the nature of the in- 
stitution swindled, and the shameless manner in which it 
was done, the case is the blackest that has yet been developed 
in California, and in boldness and meanness, if not in magni- 
tude, throws the operations of Boss Tweed in New York in 
the shade." 

How utterly unreliable George's judgment might be, 
when he was hunting for error and wrongdoing, may be 
illustrated by the amazing assertions, used as editorial texts 
in the Post, that the snow-blockades that impeded trans- 
continental transportation were brought about in the interest 
of railroad stock-jobbing schemes. Such distortions exceed 
the limits of journalistic exaggeration. Even when, for the 
sake of making the attack on Dr. Merritt more pointed, he 
admitted that the Regents at large were innocent of any 
misconduct and were at most censurable for indiscretion in 
giving so much authority to Dr. Merritt, he still managed to 
involve the whole governing board in what he chose to call 
a " scandal." And when the result of the investigation 
showed that the University had got a building for thirty 
thousand dollars less than it would have cost under the sys- 
tem ordinarily employed, and in half the time, thus saving 
the institution other expenses and difficulties, and that Dr. 
Merritt had not even made the profit that he would have had 
for his lumber from any other customer, there are still no 
limits to the abuse heaped on Dr. Merritt, and the general 
disparagement of the University continues. The minor note 
that runs through the whole investigation is the infraction 
of the eight-hour law. Dr. Merritt and Power & Ough, the 
firm that received the contract for building the College of 
Letters, had made themselves offensive in labor circles; 



148 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

they were regarded as having opposed, if not for the time 
broken up, the eight-hour movement in Oakland. There are 
two or three matters that cropped out, and were used as an- 
noying prods to the University authorities. One was an 
irregularity in opening the bids, which, however, does not 
seem to have affected the result of the bidding. Another 
was that Power & Ough had had special dealings with Dr. 
Merritt, and that they removed soon after the construction 
of the College of Letters from California, even to Nova 
Scotia. A third matter was that the cost of the building 
had been increased over the original bids by some twelve 
thousand dollars by reason of alterations in the original 
plans made by President Gilman's advice. All of these 
facts were made the most of by what may be fitly called the 
prosecution. The Regents had, indeed, violated a prin- 
ciple of fundamental importance when they allowed one of 
their number to be concerned in contracts with the institu- 
tion. They thought, perhaps naively, that the exigencies of 
the situation justified this, and they were able to plead a 
saving made by it. 

The activity among the Regents may be seen by the fol- 
lowing letter from Regent Dwindle to President Gilman, 
under date of February 3 : 

We had our meeting of the Advisory Committee today, 
thanks to your thoughtful diligence. Messrs. Haight, Steb- 
bins, Martin, and Dwindle, a quorum, were present. 
Messrs. Ralston and Butterworth were also present by in- 
vitation, — also Mr. Moulder. 

Gov. Haight had seen Speaker Estee, on Saturday, who 
had, without any communication with me, given him pre- 
cisely the same advice that I gave you and Dr. Merritt on 
Saturday evening. 

We all agreed, unanimously, that we should, by memorial, 
ask the Committee on Public Buildings of the Assembly to 
be let in to introduce further testimony; also, 



CALIFORNIA 149 

That we should memorialize the legislature to appoint a 
Joint Committee of both Houses, to inquire and report : 

1. Whether the matter of agricultural education had 
been properly attended to in the University, and if not, why 
not, and in what particulars; 

2. Whether the agricultural lands donated by the State 
to the University had been properly administered, and if 
not, why not, and in what particulars; 

3. Whether the funds entrusted by the State to the Re- 
gents have been properly administered, and if not, why not, 
and in what particulars. 



I propose to have the memorials presented in the Senate, 
have the resolutions adopted there, and then sent imme- 
diately to the Assembly for concurrence. They will be 
adopted at once by the Assembly. . . . 

The first resolution is a pious snare. The Devil did not 
assist me in drawing it, but only an imp of his, Niccolo 
Machiavelli by name. It gives us all the power we want 
to eviscerate Tomaso Machinello, commonly called Mas- 
saniello, the fisherman of Naples, friend of the people! 

If the Assembly don't concur in the joint resolution, then 
the Senate will adopt it, for their own body, from a sense 
of self-dignity. 

Apres ca, qnoi? Well, I don't know. Only that if we 
have the materials of defence, we must use them. I told 
the Regents today, as I told you, that / cannot be relied upon 
to aid them, and I told them why. Yet I told them, also, 
that I would contribute my quota of the expense of getting 
Power and Ough here, and they all agreed to do the same; 
Mr. Ralston adding that they should be got here at any 
expense. . . . 

Among the men in California of finest character was Ben- 
jamin P. Avery. He was a well-known journalist of the 
highest type. He was a special friend of the arts and a 
promoter of good objects in general. He was later United 
States Minister in China. No one's opinion was more 



ISO LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

highly respected among his contemporaries. On January 
21 he wrote these cordial words to President Gilman: 

Mr. Slocum has just told me what he learned from one 
of the University investigating ignoramuses. I am sorry 
I was not in when you called, but let me say through this 
poor medium, — don't be discouraged; don't believe the 
public fail in appreciation of your splendid service to culture 
and progress in California, nor that the legislature will be 
so foolish as to meddle with the interior organization of the 
University, which they have intrusted to the Regents. I am 
firmly convinced that all will come out right. We cannot 
spare you here, and will not. The few of us who have been 
hoping and working a quarter of a century in the direction 
of your aim, though without your ability and success, will 
all stand by you and the cause you represent. I am mad, 
but not discouraged. We shall win this fight, and want you 
to bear with our ignorant destructives awhile. Be sure of 
sympathy and support. 

On March 18 Mr. Avery wrote as follows to President 
Gilman: 

I only did a public duty in the brief letter to the Post 
which you refer to in your kind note of the 16th. It was 
not what I would like to have written, because some points 
about the Regents and the course of education were omitted; 
and these I asked to give in another communication yester- 
day. But I have been quite unwell for a week, am in danger 
of being confined with rheumatism, and fear to write more 
than I am absolutely compelled to. It is a satisfaction to 
know, however, that I spurred up the Bulletin and Chron- 
icle. Thank heaven, the legislature will soon adjourn, and 
then the demagogues will be quiet again. You will find a 
temperate reference to University matters in Overland for 
April. 

A brief note from William Alvord shows the effect which 
thoughtful and observant people might think the course of 



CALIFORNIA 151 

events would have on the mind of President Gilman. Mr. 
Alvord was Mayor of San Francisco, and was later, after 
the death of Mr. Ralston, President of the Bank of Cali- 
fornia. He was always an upholder of the higher interests 
of the community. Mr. Alvord wrote on March 19: 

The newspapers which are attempting to disparage your 
good work are unworthy of notice. I assure you that the 
best people in the community are with you; and that they 
would consider it a public misfortune should anything happen 
to take you away from us. 

Mr. Avery, as he said in his letter to President Gilman 
of March 18, published two letters in the San Francisco 
Post, one on March 14, the second on March 20. They 
were able and eloquent refutations of the charges against 
the University authorities; they pleaded especially for a 
discrimination between the business management of the 
University and its character as an institution of learning. 
" The aim should be to correct the one, if necessary, not to 
destroy or weaken the other." He says that the Post's edi- 
torials are " not so much an arraignment of the manage- 
ment, as of the wisdom of the organic law by which the 
Regents were necessarily governed." These letters vividly 
portray the grounds of alarm and apprehension felt among 
those who, like Mr. Avery, had been in California " for a 
quarter of a century, laboring from the beginning to create 
a well-ordered society." 

On the evening of January 26 President Gilman ad- 
dressed the members of the Legislature in the Assembly 
Chamber, at Sacramento. " You ask me," he said, " to tell 
the tale of the University of California, its scope, progress, 
dangers, wants and use. Without one word of abstractions 
on the importance of education, the value of colleges or the 
responsibilities of legislators, I enter on the theme." He 



1 52 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

did not leave undiscussed any essential point for the com- 
plete understanding of the present situation and condition 
of the University. Near the close of the address he said: 

I acknowledge that with all the success there are very 
great defects. There are some that can be helped and we 
intend to help. There are some that cannot be helped. 
There are the defects that come in the selection of teachers. 
There are the errors that come in marking out the courses 
of study; the difficulties attendant on removing to a new 
site; the endless perplexities that bother us in the education 
of our own minds and still more in the culture of our own 
children; but with all these drawbacks the State of Cali- 
fornia has got what it went after. It has got a University. 
. . . But success brings with it peril — great perils. In the 
direction of support there is danger that there will be too 
little interest shown in the institution. There is danger that 
there will be too much interest in it and too much interfer- 
ence. There is danger that you, gentlemen, won't give us 
enough. There is danger that we shall ask too much. . . . 
It is in danger of being captured. There are religious 
bodies that would like to control it or see it die, in order that 
separate denominational colleges might grow up in its 
stead. . . . Then come the theorists; there are men who 
want it to be a purely literary, classical college — the old- 
fashioned sort. There are men that don't want to have 
anything to do with the old-fashioned sort and they would 
like to capture it for the " new education." . . . Gentlemen, 
there is danger from impatience. You not only want a good 
thing, but you want it right off. . . . There is danger to the 
University from dislike to some persons connected with it 
as managers. ... In conclusion, it seems to me that what 
the University needs is steady, stable treatment. You should 
allow the experiment to be fairly tried — don't pull up the 
roots that you may see whether the thing is growing or not; 
it will very likely kill the plant. 

The investigation by the Assembly committee into the 
construction of the College of Letters was begun on Janu- 






CALIFORNIA 153 

ary 16, 1874, and continued to March 2. The testimony 
covers 464 pages. The report of the committee exculpates 
the Regents from any wrongdoing and admits the economy 
in the construction of the building, but it is so expressed 
as to make reservations, and assumes a censorious tone 
toward the University authorities, with a view to making 
political capital for the Dolly Vardens. 

In response to the memorial of the Regents a joint com- 
mittee was appointed on February 9, to examine into the 
management of the University. The report of this com- 
mittee constituted in effect a reply to the memorial of the 
Grangers and Mechanics. It said: "The committee is of 
the opinion that the Regents and Faculty have done well, 
considering their means and surroundings; that they deserve 
the sympathy and support of the people at large." 

The outcome of University bills before the Legislature is 
thus expressed in an editorial in the San Francisco Bulletin, 
March 31, 1874: "Notwithstanding all the fierce talk 
against the University outside of the legislature, that body, 
just after a vicious onset had been made against the institu- 
tion, actually appropriated a larger sum for the current ex- 
penses of the next two years than was at first asked for by 
the Regents; this appropriation was made with more than 
usual unanimity." 

On March 26 that brilliant and versatile man, William 
C. Ralston, President of the Bank of California, sent the 
following telegram to President Gilman: 

I beg you will kindly express to the senators who so nobly 
defended and sustained the University the most united and 
cordial thanks of the Regents and of all our prominent and 
most enlightened citizens who regard that institution as the 
pride and hope of the State. The signal defeat of its ene- 
mies, who under various pretenses, but for purely selfish 
ends, sought to break it down or cripple its usefulness, is 



i 5 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

matter for public rejoicing. The assault, however, has done 
great damage by disclosing the danger to be apprehended 
from disorganizing political elements, and we shall have 
hard work to overcome the effects of it. Many true friends 
of the University who designed making liberal benefactions 
will hold back until assured that the danger is past. If a 
political fight is to be made over it at every session of the 
legislature and the management liable to fall into the hands 
of irresponsible and unprincipled demagogues, they will 
stand aloof. We must hope for the best and stand by our 
beloved institution. 

This acute crisis in the University's affairs was thus ended, 
and never was so great a peril to be encountered again. But 
it was impossible to foresee that. What had happened in 
the way of popular upheaval seemed merely symptomatic 
of what might happen again at any time, and with more dis- 
astrous effect. It could not even be known that the Dolly 
Vardens had had their day, and would never play a part 
again in the political game. It could not then be known that 
the influence of the Grangers would soon be on the wane. 
And if the first movements of the " sand-lot " agitation 
could have been foreseen, darkest anxiety would have pre- 
vailed among the friends of the University, and no one of 
less optimistic spirit than Mr. Ralston would have had the 
heart to say, " We must hope for the best and stand by our 
beloved institution." He, sanguine in spirit and true Cali- 
fornian in his confidence in the State's destiny, would, with 
other Regents, have stood by the University as the main 
conservator of civilization. 

President Gilman's feelings during this period may be 
judged from the following extracts from his correspondence. 

Writing to his brother on February 28, he says: 

The legislature is still in session, and its mode of pro- 
cedure is such as to awaken in my mind the gravest appre- 



CALIFORNIA 155 

hensions. I cannot tell you all the circumstances, but the 
point is an effort on the part of the Farmers' Grange to 
capture the University and turn it into a sort of low manual- 
labor school. This it is proposed to accomplish either by 
abolition of the present Board of Regents or by special 
legislation or by both. I am infinitely disgusted, and were 
it not for the respect I feel for the excellent people who are 
so manfully striving here for the main thing, and were it not 
for the confidence I have that the University idea is to 
triumph in the end, — I should be quite discouraged. I am 
very much perplexed and engrossed. All my friends whom 
I ought to advise with are 3000 miles away. 

And again on March 1 1 : 

On Monday I went to Sacramento, a six hours' ride, and 
came back Tuesday. I must go again to the capital tomor- 
row and return the next day. Gov. Haight and Dr. Steb- 
bins were my companions on the first trip and I expect them 
to go again tomorrow. They have been most excellent 
friends and supporters ever since I came here and are ex- 
cellent illustrations of Harvard and Yale training. Our 
effort now is to ward off unwise legislation and to secure as 
hitherto some appropriations. The story of how the Far- 
mers' Grange are trying to capture the University will be a 
droll one, some years hence, if it ever comes to be written. 

He enters extensively into the situation, and into the pos- 
sibilities regarding his own future which it caused him to 
consider, in a letter to President White, dated April 5 : 

I received on Thursday your letter of the week previous 
(Mch. 26). I have not seen the Post article to which you 
refer, — but if you had known exactly what was passing 
in my mind you could not have written me a more cheering 
letter. " Our " legislature adjourned last week. During 
the last few days of the session, Prof. Swinton, whose resig- 
nation had been unanimously accepted by the Regents, ap- 
peared at Sacramento, as the opponent of the Univ. and the 



156 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

advocate of the Granges. He issued a pamphlet so extreme 
as to be absurd; but by his newspaper affiliations, he suc- 
ceeded in getting his chief statements widely copied. This 
was very annoying though it did but little harm. The Joint 
Univ. Comm. reproached him and commended the Regents. 
The legislature refrained from all adverse legislation, made 
the Pres. an ex-officio member of the Board of Regents, and 
gave us all the pecuniary help we had asked for. So we 
stand today. But the peril to the Univ. has been great. The 
Grangers were determined to capture the concern, — up to 
the last moments were endeavoring to abolish the Board of 
Regents, and substitute a Board chosen by popular election 
— two from each congressional district. Dr. Carr, who 
appears to have instigated the whole movement, at the last 
of it backed down, testified that he had never heard any 
complaint ! that as far as indoor instruction was concerned, 
the Univ. compared favorably with any institution in the 
country, etc., etc. ! The whole battle had its droll as well 
as its provoking side. 

What you say of like perils in other places interests me 
very much. Misery likes company. But I am only sorry 
that you are so vexed, — after having achieved such good 
results. I have thought often of your long letter, and of 
the talks it gave rise to last fall. I don't know what I 
should say if I were called on to make a decision. At the 
present, my mind turns more to the direction of editorial 
life, — either in the newspaper line, or in establishing a 
monthly to be called " Earth and Man," — and to be de- 
voted to the discussion of modern social problems, — with 
reference both to the physical and outward circumstances of 
human society and to the historical and institutional antece- 
dents. I merely give you a hint of the scope, — but you will 
quickly expand it. There is no such journal in the world. 
The graphic methods of illustrating social and historical pa- 
pers could be most efficiently introduced. It might be made 
a journal of anthropology, — not of man's body only, but 
of all his social progress. Such work as Walker is doing 
for the U. S. Census could be expanded and multiplied in- 
definitely. History and political economy might be treated 
on a scientific basis. This is not a prospectus, however, only 



CALIFORNIA 157 

a suggestion of what I am revolving. I want to talk the 
scheme over with you, — for if you do leave your present 
work, here is an opening! Prof. J. D. Whitney, — just 
thrown out as Calif. State Geologist, goes around the world 
on a two years' journey. I think he could be enlisted, though 
I have not spoken to him. Then I should hope for W. D. 
Whitney also. Think this over agin we meet. 

I have not the disposition to leave here without cause. 
The Regents are very cordial in sustaining me; and so are 
the right-minded persons all around. But there are dangers 
here which I could not foresee. The first is the " Code " 
(adopted after I came here) makes the Regents a body of 
civil executive officers, liable to be abolished at any session of 
the legislature. The second is that the legislature assumes 
the right to investigate and scrutinize the Univ. to its most 
minute affairs. This year the dangers have been averted; 
but who can tell what will happen two years hence? I feel 
that we are building a superior structure, but it rests over 
a powder mill which may blow it up any day. All these 
conditions fill me with perplexity. I should be strongly 
tempted to accept a good call to go hence. But the editorial 
work looks quite as attractive as the continuance of official 
life. I could not conclude on any new proposition without 
conferring upon it with some of my family friends; and I 
have not felt at liberty to do so. I confess that the Balti- 
more scheme has ofttimes suggested itself to me, but I have 
no personal relations in that quarter. One of these days 
there is going to be a magnificent opening in New York 
City to associate and affiliate all those grand institutions 
which are springing up there. 

Doubtless the personalities of the winter growing out of 
Professor Carr's and Professor Swinton's part in these at- 
tempts to alter the constitution of the University, in fact to 
destroy it as a university, were the most annoying features 
of the controversy. What has been quoted from Henry 
George's biography as to the mental capacity of Professor 
Swinton is correct. He was a brilliant man, capable of 



1 58 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

splendid work in the class-room. But he had from the 
beginning been notoriously neglectful of his University 
duties. He was frequently absent from his lectures; his 
classes, when so disposed, would " cut " in a body. Often 
it was a game of hide-and-seek between professor and class. 
If the professor was five minutes late, the class left; if the 
class was five minutes late, the professor left. The game 
came to be somewhat organized for the benefit of a lazy 
professor and not over-zealous students. The students 
posted a lookout while they stood around the corner of the 
building. If after the bell had rung, and before the five 
minutes had elapsed, the professor was seen slowly ap- 
proaching, the class was notified, and would cut and run. 
Professor Swinton had, furthermore, become absorbed, so 
far as intellectual work was concerned, in the production of 
school text-books. In the autumn of 1873 one of his Uni- 
versity courses was conducted by his reading, while correct- 
ing, the proof-sheets of his " Universal History." 

Professor Swinton was, indeed, now out of the Univer- 
sity. That problem had been eliminated, though not with- 
out leaving baneful effects behind. But Professor Carr was 
still in the Faculty, and one of the Regents had promised 
immunity for him if the Legislature would drop the bill 
remodeling the Board of Regents. The Regent, Mr. 
Dwindle, who made the immunity agreement, was the author 
of the charter of the University, and the institution had 
no more devoted and, generally speaking, intelligent friend 
than he. Nor was the promised immunity what it was gen- 
erally claimed and popularly believed to be, an absolute 
promise that Professor Carr should not be disturbed if the 
bill in question was dropped. It apparently was made with 
reference to the accusations against Professor Carr that he 
had instigated the anti-University measures; and Mr. Dwi- 
ndle was ready to withdraw any such accusations. He ac- 



CALIFORNIA 159 

cordingly promised that no attempt should be made to re- 
move the Professor of Agriculture unless " for such causes 
as would remove a professor from any chair," (these are 
the words as given by Professor Carr himself in a lengthy 
pamphlet, published in September, 1874). But this promise 
of immunity, whatever it was, was there to add trouble in 
the displacement of Professor Carr. It was useless to at- 
tempt any genuine improvement in the Department of 
Agriculture while he held the professorship, and no great 
advance could be expected in the University at large with- 
out improving the College of Agriculture. The situation was 
disheartening. The public could only see that the University 
had been triumphant before the Legislature; and, on the 
other hand, men of wealth were indisposed to aid an in- 
stitution open to demagogic agitation. President Gilman 
had placed large reliance upon securing endowments from 
wealthy men; and he now foresaw that the University could 
not, for many years, hope to make much progress while de- 
pendent solely upon its national and State endowments and 
biennial legislative appropriations. 

Under these discouraging circumstances he addressed to 
the Board of Regents the following letter of resignation, 
dated April 8 : 

I believe that the real controversy which has been car- 
ried on during the last few months arises from a deep and 
radical difference of opinion as to the scope of the Univer- 
sity of California. On the one hand are those who insist 
upon it that the chief object is to maintain an Agricultural 
College, or, as it is sometimes more liberally stated, a College 
of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. They call for a large 
increase in the " practical " elements of instruction, often 
going so far as to insist that instruction in carpentry, black- 
smithing and other manual and useful trades should be 
taught in the University. On the other hand are those who 
insist upon it that the constitution and laws of the State, 



160 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

the conditions of the endowments, and the highest interests 
of California demand a true University, in which indeed 
there should be maintained at least one college of Agricul- 
ture and the Mechanic Arts, — but where the best of every 
sort of culture should likewise be promoted. These claim 
that the most practical service which the University can 
render to the State is to teach the principles of science, and 
their applications to all the wants of men, and at the same 
time to teach all that language and history have handed 
down as the experience of humanity. 

The University of California is now organized on a com- 
prehensive and liberal basis. Its plans are in accord with 
the best experience of modern institutions in other States 
and countries. / believe in it as it stands, rejoicing that in 
so short a time so much has been done, with such promise 
of good fruit ripening rapidly. I am heartily in sympathy 
with the introduction of science into higher educational es- 
tablishments and eager to see also the wide diffusion of tech- 
nical instruction. But because I cannot assent to some of the 
radical demands which would overthrow the University, 
abolish the Regents, and entirely change the present course 
of study, I am exposed to censure. 

The honorable post which I hold by your appointment 
was not of my seeking. I came to it with hesitation, when 
your invitation was renewed after an interval of two years 
from its first proposition. I have tried to the utmost of my 
ability to conciliate the various conflicting parties and beg 
them to sink the points on which they differ for the sake of 
those on which they agree; to make a University of the 
most liberal, elevated and comprehensive sort, worthy of 
California, worthy of the 19th century, worthy to train up 
the future citizens of this great State. You have as a Board 
and as individuals strengthened me in this effort, — encour- 
aged me amid many difficulties, conquered many obstacles, 
and remained true to the University idea. You have re- 
ceived the co-operation of multitudes of the most intelligent 
and far-sighted persons in the community. You have had the 
satisfaction of attaining great results within a short time, 
which have attracted the attention of intelligent people at 
home and abroad. 



CALIFORNIA 161 

Notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding that my 
record as an advocate of technical instruction is clear and 
decided, it is probable that some one else will better serve 
you in the present complexities. For University fighting I 
have had no training; in University work I delight. I 
therefore beg of you to release me from the post I hold, at 
the earliest day you can consistently do so. I only ask leave 
to present more fully for your consideration at another time 
the embarrassments to which I have been subjected from 
within as well as from without the University circle. 1 

This resignation does not appear of record in the Uni- 
versity archives. No mention is made of it at any pro- 
ceedings of the University authorities. It was submitted to 
the Regents, who quietly persuaded President Gilman to 
withdraw it. The only documentary reference we have to 
the situation is the following letter from Regent Haight to 
President Gi 1 nan, dated April 14: 

I sat down some days since to write you a note respecting 
our meeting Saturday, which was to my mind a very satis- 
factory and assuring one. 

The disposition manifested by the Regents to act with 
firmness in any direction where the interests of the Univer- 
sity require action was all that could be desired, and the en- 
tire unanimity of the Board was certainly gratifying. When 
I say entire unanimity, it may be that one member of the 
Board entertains some peculiar views of his duty, but that is 
immaterial. 

My confidence in the ultimate result of all this rude and 
senseless clamor is strengthened by the present aspect of 
matters. 

The Regents will not suffer you to leave if they can help 
it. You have every reason to feel gratified with the esti- 
mate in which you are held by them and by the intelligent 
portion of the community. 

1 The words after "subjected" in the last sentence of the above 
letter are crossed out in the original. 



1 62 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

President Gilman's letters after the storm had subsided 
show decided satisfaction with the immediate situation, but 
very grave doubts about the future. Writing to President 
White on May 12, he says: 

We seem to have come out in still waters, — and have a 
smooth prospect for the next two years, but I should not like 
to go through such a tussle again. Swinton and Carr, plot- 
ting mischief, within our own ranks, one of them eager to 
sell books and the other to hide his own incompetency, were 
too much for any institution to carry. I often thought dur- 
ing the winter that I should quit at this time, — but the 
legislature did so well, and the Regents stand so firm, that I 
cannot resign here without some very strong reason pre- 
sents itself for doing so. 

To his sister, Mrs. G. W. Lane, on June 2 : 

We have just had the annual meeting of the Regents, at 
Berkeley, a large attendance, good feeling and gratifying 
spirit of work. Gov. Booth was here. Gov. Haight (just 
leaving for the East) was detained, but he does not with- 
draw from the Board. 

As for my own relations to the work, I vibrate. Some as- 
pects are very delightful and encouraging. In the daily 
round of occupations I am happy and contented; but I con- 
sider that our best work may be overthrown in an hour by a 
capricious legislature, — and that makes me question con- 
stantly whether I ought to remain here. The good will of 
the Regents and of the University friends is still so cordial 
and demonstrative that I have no reason " to stop " today 
or tomorrow. I should be sorry " to stop " in an abrupt or 
damaging way, — but I think the foundations are weak, and 
I don't like to build upon them. If any domestic or public 
consideration should call me east I should feel at liberty to 
go; but unless there is some such obvious reason for break- 
ing away, I shall probably remain here through another 
winter. As I feel now, and have felt ever since the last 
legislature met, I could not be induced to go through such a 



CALIFORNIA 163 

tussle. I have a sort of settled conviction that the only way 
to live is from day to day, — and that now my duty is to 
serve as well as I can these interests; yet I have an impres- 
sion also that I ought not to be indifferent to opportunities 
elsewhere and I should listen favorably to any call to work 
at the East. 



To President White, June 21 : 

I would give all my pile just now for a talk with you; 
the provocation being a single line from my brother that 
you have been talking with him. I wrote twice, at least, 
during the winter, when both you and I were a good deal 
absorbed and I don't know exactly how I stated my story 
nor have I heard from you in reply; but my mind was then 
turned strongly to the old idea of "the press" as better 
than "the office," to help on public affairs. We came out 
all right last winter, but the perils of a college subject to 
direct legislative control are so great, so complex, so inevit- 
able, that I am in no mood to go forward here. The Cor- 
poration would be a bulwark; but Regents regarded as re- 
sponsible direct to the legislature, like railroad or bank com- 
missioners, are too unstable to rely on. We are now serene 
and prosperous. Everything is lovely. Good feelings are 
every where ascendant. I can't give up however the recollec- 
tion of our last winter's dangers; and whenever the right 
moment comes, — I shall feel that I am justified in with- 
drawing. What next? Here are capital openings for use- 
fulness and for activity, but I turn homeward. 

During the winter and spring President Gilman had been 
busy with his usual tasks. Three important addresses were 
given by him. On December 23, 1873, he delivered an ad- 
dress at the Agassiz Memorial Meeting held by the 
Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, on the " Influence ex- 
erted by Agassiz on American Education." On January 
3, 1874, he gave a lecture before the Mechanics' Institute in 
San Francisco on " Modes of Promoting Scientific and In- 



1 64 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT OILMAN 

dustrial Education in Large Towns "; and on January 12, 
under the same auspices, he gave a lecture on " Six Univer- 
sities." He also sent to the Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science a paper entitled "California: a Study in 
Social Science," which was read at the annual meeting held 
in May in New York City. 

President Gilman had felt great concern about securing 
accommodations for the students in Berkeley. He had 
urged ecclesiastical bodies as well as individuals to supply 
houses for them. These requests had not been successful. 
It therefore fell upon the Regents to make some provision. 
For this purpose eight cottages, each accommodating ten 
or twelve persons, were built and rented to the students at a 
moderate rate. Most of the students were in moderate cir- 
cumstances, and many had to earn their own livelihood. In 
order to supply aid to deserving students, he secured the 
organization of a number of liberal gentlemen in a stu- 
dents' loan association. Much work had to be done to get 
affairs together after the demoralizing experience of the 
winter. Preparation for the annual report and arrange- 
ments for the coming year had to be made. The President 
was busy in his class-room repairing sadly interrupted work 
there. 

Larger schemes were also occupying his mind. The idea 
of concentrating influences so as to bring about the greatest 
results was always with him. We have a manuscript record 
of this project in the following skeleton form: 



I. 

Form a company of gentlemen to be incorporated under 
some appropriate name, such as 

Trustees of Learning; 

SAN FRANCISCO UNION, for the advancement of 
Science, Literature and Art. 



CALIFORNIA 165 



II. 



Object. — To hold funds and devise methods for co- 
operating with the University, the Lick Observatory, the 
Academy of Sciences, the Lick Polytechnic School, the Art 
Association, etc., so that these and other kindred founda- 
tions may pull together, and not pull apart. 

III. 

The Trustees not to exceed 15 in number and to be 
chiefly chosen from business men of acknowledged character 
and position. 

IV. 

An Advisory Board or Council to be organized from liter- 
ary and scientific men, to whom shall be referred questions 
of literary and scientific bearing. 
This Council to include : 

( President of Acad, of Sciences 
ex-oflicio J Director of Lick Observatory 

[President of University 
and not more than six other associates. 

V. 

Funds to be solicited: 

1. A Library Fund. 

2. A Popular Lecture Fund. 

3. A fund for Prizes and Scholarships, to help bright 

and needy young men in their studies. 

4. A fund for a Mining School. 

5. A fund for a School of Architecture and Building. 

6. A fund for a School of Design. 

7. A general untrammeled fund. 

We have also a manuscript draft of a scheme for Lick's 
Polytechnic School. Correspondence and conversations, 
too, there were about the Lick Observatory. In the course 



1 66 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

of a letter, of a little later date, written from New York 
on October 20, 1874, Mr. D. O. Mills says that President 
Eliot, and all persons at the Harvard Observatory, are in- 
terested in " our great project," and at Washington " Prof. 
Newcomb and Prof. Holden took great pains in giving all 
information I could ask for. I at this time begin to feel 
quite posted up, but I shall take pleasure in acting on your 
suggestions as far as convenience will permit." He adds: 
" It is a pleasure to hear how well you are doing with our 
University, and I trust hereafter all may work more in 
harmony." Mr. Mills had been appointed Regent in 
March, 1874, and served until 1881. After the government 
of the institution had been made permanent by the Constitu- 
tion of 1879, he gave proof of his interest by endowing a 
chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy. 

In the summer of 1874 it was decided to settle the ques- 
tion of the professorship of Agriculture. Accordingly, on 
July 23, the Regents passed a resolution requesting the 
resignation of Professor Carr. He refused to comply, in- 
voking pledges given during the session of the Legislature, 
and asserting that he could not resign " without an apparent 
abandonment of the cause of industrial education." On 
August 1 1 the Regents formally voted to dispense with his 
services " in view of his incompetency and unfitness for the 
duties of the chair." President Gilman had by this time 
gone East on his vacation. There was a remonstrance made 
to this removal by a joint committee of the State Grange 
and of the Mechanics' State Council and Mechanics' De- 
liberative Assembly, to which the Regents made a printed 
answer. Professor Carr published a pamphlet of 112 pages 
on " The University of California and its Relation to In- 
dustrial Education." With the subsequent appointment of 
Dr. Eugene W. Hilgard as Professor of Agriculture the 
controversy was practically at an end; far more so, indeed, 



CALIFORNIA 167 

than could then be seen. For the Grangers still agitated the 
subject, and Professor Carr's wife was a remarkably able 
woman, of great energy and extraordinary influence, who 
was of no mind to retire from the public eye. It was not 
surprising, therefore, that in 1875 Professor Carr was 
elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, becoming, 
through that office, a Regent of the University. Perhaps he 
did not wish to provoke further trouble; perhaps he himself 
was never very pugnacious and had not of his own volition 
stirred up the unfortunate contention; certainly he had a 
likable disposition, on account of which President Gilman 
was more charitable to him than probably any one in Cali- 
fornia knew; he had now, at any rate, no more grievances, 
having been raised by the people to a place among the 
rulers of the institution; the farmers were beginning to find 
that President Oilman's arrangements for agricultural edu- 
cation bore better results than Professor Carr's; and the 
Grangers were declining as a political body. No important 
interference with the development of the University was 
henceforth traceable to Professor Carr. 

The new academic year opened in September. At an 
early Friday afternoon assembly President Gilman, in place 
of a formal lecture, made a short address upon the object 
of a university education. He dwelt upon the importance 
of having a " clear and vivid notion of what we are aiming 
at," ever a striking characteristic of his policy and conduct. 
He said: "At the beginning of a new year of college in- 
struction it is desirable that we should all, both teachers 
and scholars, have a clear notion of what we are aiming to 
accomplish. We shall encounter obstacles, surely, before 
we have gone far; we shall sometimes feel as if our best 
work was of no account; we shall tend toward discourage- 
ment. But if we have a clear and vivid notion of what we 
are aiming at, and a right appreciation of the methods of 



1 68 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

progress, the clouds of discouragement will soon vanish in 
the face of broad daylight; or if they still hang over the 
sky, the patches of bright blue light will frequently be 
revealed." 

The University community took the President's address 
as meaning that he had adjusted himself to the situation, 
and, with a clear notion of what he wished to accomplish, 
had set his face steadily to the attainment of his object. Cer- 
tainly things resumed their wonted aspect, — every one 
worked with buoyancy and hope, and no one during the next 
six months detected any diminution of interest and zeal in 
the University on the part of the President. 

The most important work of the last year of his adminis- 
tration was the strengthening of the Faculty. Professor Sill 
was appointed to the chair of English. Dr. E. W. Hilgard 
was appointed to the professorship of Agriculture and has 
lived to bring to full fruition the hopes of President Gilman. 
The College of Mechanics was fully organized, and Fred- 
erick G. Hesse was made the leading professor in it. " It 
is rare," said President Gilman, " to find a man qualified to 
fill the duties of a chair of industrial mechanics both by his 
scientific attainments and by practical knowledge acquired 
in the shop, but Mr. Hesse is such a man," and the subse- 
quent development of that college fully justified his faith. 
Likewise the College of Mining was organized, and William 
Ashburner appointed Professor of Mining. He was a min- 
ing engineer, with accurate scientific and technical training 
in the East and in Europe, and with large practical experi- 
ence in California. He laid solid foundations for this de- 
partment of the University. A new instructor in German 
was named in the person of Albin Putzker, who long con- 
tinued, first as instructor and then as Professor of the Ger- 
man Language and Literature, in the words of President 
Gilman, to " succeed in a remarkable degree in awakening 



CALIFORNIA 169 

a love of the study of that language in all classes of 
students." 

President Gilman pursued the policy of appointing a num- 
ber of recent graduates as " assistant instructors," to be 
afterwards sifted out, those who proved worthy and wished 
to follow an academic life to be promoted. None of his ap- 
pointees who desired to remain at the University failed of 
ultimate promotion. What the retiring President of the 
Carnegie Institution found worth stating as a principle — 
that we must " discover and develop such men as have un- 
usual ability " — he had put in practice thirty years before 
as President of the University of California. 

While the University was being thus reinforced, and 
President Gilman was making a thoroughly well-compacted 
and efficient institution, corresponding with the ideas that 
he had set forth in his inaugural address, events were work- 
ing rapidly toward another future for him. The course of 
these events is disclosed in several letters written to Presi- 
dent White. 

There is an intimation of something coming in this letter, 
dated September 30, 1874: 

You will be glad to know that I find the outcry almost ex- 
clusively confined to the Grangers and Dr. Carr's personal 
friends. We begin the term, inside, more pleasantly than 
ever. We had more than 100 applicants for admission; our 
Freshman class numbers 67 ; the whole number of students 
was never so large as now; Hilgard is here, and proves to 
be just what we thought him, — a first-rate man in his 
place, — cooperative and capital as a teacher. Dr. Carr 
has published nine columns of mixed calumny and falsehood 
and innuendo; the Regents have had their say, and there 
the matter now rests. A Santa Barbara paper was handed 
me Tuesday in which a letter is printed from your friend 
Mr. Storke. It is very friendly and will do good here; but 
the young man has let out what I have kept entirely secret, 



170 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

— the point of our recent talks and correspondence. I am 
afraid that he has gone beyond the limits of discretion in 
what he reports of your conversation and wishes; but if the 
story remains here no harm will come of it; I hope not in 
any case. But if the paragraph does get copied in the East 
I hope you will know whence it originated. I have regarded 
your overtures as strictly confidential, — so much so that 
I have not felt free to consult those whose opinions I de- 
sired to seek. My references even in the family have been 
very guarded. 

The following letter, dated October 18, after referring to 
the Carr episode and the existing pleasant situation at the 
University, comes again to the now vital subject: 

I have received your two long letters written early in this 
month, one of them giving me an account of your visit 
from the Hopkins Trustees, and the other your views of the 
answer here given to the Grangers. I feel very much obliged 
to you for both these notes. The latter (on Dr. Carr) 
I have read to Gov. Haight, Bolander, Hilgard, Rising, 
and others who are very much pleased that you take this 
view. . . . 

The Univ. never began a term more pleasantly than the 
present. . . . Our new teachers take hold first rate, and we 
are all cheerful and happy. . . . 

I am of course deeply interested in what you say of the 
Hopkins Trustees. Their reception at New Haven amused 
me more than it surprises me. There is no doubt among 
our old friends a latent indifference if not an open distrust 
of what is doing at the upper end of College street. I feel 
grateful to you for the good word you said for me to these 
gentlemen, and confess that I should consider their propo- 
sition if it were made. When I saw you, I felt that to 
think of leaving here might be " desertion in the face of the 
enemy," — but our term opens so finely and everything is 
so encouraging that I do not feel fettered. We had a gift 
yesterday of $5000 for a cabinet of minerals. 



CALIFORNIA 171 

A letter to President White, dated November 4, an- 
nounces the receipt of overtures from the Johns Hopkins 
Trustees, and expresses the solicitude he always felt for the 
University of California : 

The Baltimore overtures have reached me an hour ago. 
I suppose my family are half way across the continent; but 
if I can stop them coming on I shall do so, and shall ask 
leave to go East and see for myself. I feel much gratified 
by the confidence which so many of my friends have shown 
in me by saying a good word, at the opportune moment; 
but I must be very careful that the interests here do not 
suffer. We are apparently over the crisis; that answer to 
the Grangers has silenced them; our large increase of schol- 
ars, and general quiet and serenity surprises us all; if I am 
to resign at all within two years, now is the moment. No 
legislature for thirteen months; and then the tidal wave of 
what sort of democracy? I have not mentioned your letter 
respecting the visit and talk of the Hopkins Trustees to 
anybody, by letter or orally; so I don't know how to pro- 
ceed with their overture, — but I shall at once have a frank 
talk with some of our Regents. I think I shall resign, — 
resignation to take effect at a time to be mutually agreed 
upon. Then being free, I shall go East and look at the 
situation. It would seem to me unwise to accept such a post 
without having first a personal interview. I write on the 
spur of the moment. 

On December 9 President Gilman wrote to Governor 
Booth: " It is my intention to inform the Regents at their 
next meeting that I have received letters from an institution 
of learning at the East looking to my acceptance of the 
Presidency of the same. The overtures are so attractive 
that I feel bound to consider them and in order that I 
may honorably do so, I shall present my resignation to the 
Board." Governor Booth in his reply said: "I can only 
add the expression of my regret that we are to lose you, 



172 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

and that the best interests of the State are not identical with 
yours." 

John W. Dwindle had resigned from the Regency after 
the removal of Professor Carr. There were those who 
criticised him for making that promise at the session of the 
Legislature; there were those who criticised him for not 
making the Board of Regents live up to the promise; there 
were those who criticised him for paying any heed what- 
soever to the promise. He acted as his conscience told him 
was right, and especially that his position might not com- 
plicate matters to President Gilman's disadvantage. To 
no one does the University owe a larger debt in organiza- 
tion, and first years of development. On February 12, 
1875, he wrote the following letter to President Gilman: 

If I have not said, before now, what I now say, it is be- 
cause I thought that the time and the place had not come 
when it would be perfectly proper to say it. Of course you 
will accept the Baltimore appointment. 

First : We have not furnished you the entertainment to 
which you were invited. We are on the eve of a contest 
where the Board of Regents is to be assailed by falsehood, 
malice and every kind of nastiness from the outside, aided 
by treachery from within. We did not invite you to this, 
and you have a right to retire from it, particularly when the 
mode of retirement comes in the form of accepted reward 
of well-doing — promotion. 

Secondly: You have a great opportunity at Baltimore, 
that of organizing the first real American university. That 
you will do it successfully, and thus place yourself at once 
at the head of your profession in America, I have not the 
least doubt. 

God bless you in this great mission! 

The Regents made plans for a public dinner in honor of 
President Gilman before his departure from California; 



CALIFORNIA 173 

but he declined this honor for reasons given in the following 
letter, addressed to the Advisory Committee, under date of 
April 7 : 

The invitation which you have communicated to me from 
the Board of Regents to meet them at a public dinner before 
my departure from California is an honor which I fully ap- 
preciate. I am grateful for this token of their confidence and 
regard, but feel constrained to ask them to excuse me from 
accepting. 

There are still many duties connected with the University 
which I wish to discharge and there are distant parts of the 
State which I wish to visit, so that my days are already full 
of engagements. 

If any public service could be rendered by bringing to- 
gether at this time those who are interested in the advance- 
ment of the University, the Academy, the Polytechnic 
School, the Art School, the High School, and other higher 
educational institutions, I should be willing to delay my de- 
parture; but I think that the moment is not propitious for 
such a gathering. 

Personally I could not have any better evidence of the 
good will of the Regents than the support which they have 
uniformly extended to me, and the unvarying devotion to 
the interests of the University which they have exhibited. 

Will you be so good as to communicate this note to the 
Regents with my Farewell, and the assurance that wherever 
my home is cast, I shall maintain a grateful remembrance 
of the manifold kindnesses I have received from them, and 
from other citizens of California, and a lively interest in 
all the efforts which are made to advance the education of 
the State. 

Upon their acceptance of President Gilman's resignation, 
the Regents appointed Professor John Le Conte to the posi- 
tion of Acting President. Two gatherings in the nature of a 
farewell were held, — one just before the week's recess, 
closing the winter term, on March 24, and the other on 



i 7 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






April 2, when Professor Le Conte entered on the duties of 
his office. The first was got up entirely by the students 
and was a complete surprise to President Gilman. A re- 
ception, some recitations, reading of resolutions, together 
with some tender words of affection, made up the pro- 
gramme. The other occasion was announced in the 
press, and the assembly hall at Berkeley was filled with 
friends of the departing President from Oakland and San 
Francisco. 

A number of pages of manuscript have been found among 
President Gilman's papers relating to the period of his resi- 
dence in California. These pages are, for the most part, 
not numbered, and are not in all cases consecutive. They 
seem to have been prepared for an address before leaving 
Berkeley, perhaps for the meeting that was held on April 2. 
There are indeed some expressions found in the manuscript 
which correspond to what he said on that occasion, but on 
the whole the tenor of the remarks then made differed from 
the written pages. In the manuscript the words " in the 
company of these officers and students " is underscored. 
Perhaps, when he found so large an audience not belonging 
to his intimate University family, he shrank from speaking 
so freely and confined himself to impromptu generalities. 
These fragments are valuable as disclosing the writer's 
inner feelings; or rather, perhaps, as showing his desire 
that the " officers and students " should understand what 
his feelings were, for we have been let into his heart by his 
private letters. These manuscript pages are now given in 
what seems to be their proper sequence: 

It is with great reluctance that I take the final steps which 
will sever my connection with the University of California. 
I came with much hesitation; I have staid with increasing 
satisfaction; I go with sincere regret. Whatever the future 
may bring forth, Berkeley will be remembered with delight. 



CALIFORNIA 175 

It seems as if even friendships ripened quicker than else- 
where beneath these favoring skies. 

Perhaps I ought to rest content with this simple utterance 
of good will; but the University has of late been the sub- 
ject of so much comment that I am tempted to throw off 
the reserve which is natural to me and speak somewhat freely 
in the company of these officers and students who will know 
the truth of what I utter. You will bear me witness that I 
have not used official opportunities in the class room or as- 
sembly, in the Faculty or Board of Regents, for any personal 
ends; and that I have kept aloof from all the financial, po- 
litical and ecclesiastical excitements which have prevailed in 
the community. My sole desire has been to see the Univer- 
sity well established; to see all classes united in its support; 
to see the prosperous and the needy equally welcome to our 
literary republic in the good fellowship of learning; to see 
literature and history on the one hand, science and the arts 
upon the other, promoted with generous zest; and above 
all to see those influences made perpetual which will mould 
the youth of California into noble, virtuous, and cultivated 
men and women. 

Such an institution has here been planted. It is admin- 
istered by a Board of Regents whose persistent, unselfish, 
and unpaid devotion to the work entrusted to them this com- 
munity has never begun to appreciate. They have been 
blamed for not incurring expenditures, when their treasury 
was exhausted; they have been censured because the Uni- 
versity was not built in a day; but through evil report and 
through good report, they have been firm in their convic- 
tions of duty, united in action, successful in their undertak- 
ing; and the day will come when the State of California will 
render them thanks for their now thankless service. 

I have also learned to appreciate and honor those who 
are devoted to the instruction and administration of the 
University. Trained as they have been in different sorts of 
institutions and in different countries, devoted to widely dif- 
ferent branches of study, they constitute a body of teachers 
of whom the community is now more proud than ever and 
whose highest praise is to be found in the intellectual and 
moral characteristics of those who have graduated under 



176 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

their authority. Some of the Faculty are already eminent 
as scientific investigators, and others who have been de- 
voted to the work of the class room rather than to literary 
and scientific research are likewise eminent as teachers and 
are remarkably successful as the guides of youth. . . . 

During the last few months the University has been so 
unfortunate as to be the object of some unfriendly attacks. 
You know quite as well as I the sources from which they 
came, — but neither you nor I need attribute them to any 
improper motives. The Regents have endeavored to as- 
certain whether the criticisms were deserved; and where 
either friend or foe has pointed out a weakness or an imper- 
fection they have endeavored to remedy it. The lack of 
money, the need of time, the want of men, the defects of 
laws have delayed many changes and improvements. But 
in the face of all its embarrassments, the University has 
maintained its serenity and has gone forward with con- 
stantly increasing prosperity. 

If the personal animosities are overlooked, it will be dis- 
covered that the chief complaint has been that the Univer- 
sity has been unfriendly to agriculture, and this cry has been 
widely repeated through a secret political organization, — 
composed of those who for the most part have never visited 
the University, and who had been largely influenced by the 
representations of one of their order who was supposed to 
know. 

Among the errors into which they have been led was the 
belief that the Congressional grant of 1862 had either been 
squandered or devoted to a classical college; that the Uni- 
versity gave no technical instruction in subjects relating to 
agriculture; and that only one-twentieth of the University 
income was so expended as to be of use to agricultural 
students. 

The Regents controverted these extravagant assertions 
with success and were sustained by the legislature; but popu- 
lar errors are slowly corrected; and these false impressions 
continue to give bitterness to the controversy. It was an 
unfortunate coincidence that an accomplished member of the 
Faculty resigned his professorship to engage in other liter- 
ary work, just when the controversy was at its height, and 



CALIFORNIA 177 

that he lent his practised pen to the support of a cause which 
on other occasions he had never espoused. The perusal 
of his pamphlet, in connection with these remarks, is 
earnestly to be commended. 

The attacks upon the University have been kept up, in a 
limited circle, from that time onward; newspaper articles 
have been clipped out, underscored, and widely distributed 
by some diligent hand, through the Eastern colleges. 

One reply has been issued by the Regents, — an answer 
to a special communication formally presented to them. 

On all this controversy I have neither complained, nor an- 
swered back, nor asked to be vindicated. Even now I call 
no names; impugn no motives; employ no epithets. If 
there have been grave errors, public vigilance will detect 
them, and will resort to stronger methods of attack than 
Parthian arrows, or amusing squibs. But up to the present 
time, the legislature, the executive officers of the State, the 
Regents, the Faculty, the parents, and the students have 
stood united in their defense of the University. I do not 
hesitate to say that the government was never more harmo- 
nious; the number of scholars was never so large; the Fac- 
ulty was never so vigorous; the courses of study were never 
so varied; the funds were never so ample; the library and 
museums were never so large; the finances were never so 
well administered; and 

The page ends without finishing the sentence, and there 
is no page following in consecutive order. There are two 
pages which fit in as a later continuation of the same 
thought, giving a somewhat explicit account of the growth 
of the University and the strong material foundation which 
it has secured. The following isolated paragraph might well 
conclude that portion of the address: 

It seems strange to a few of my friends both here and 
at the East that under these circumstances I am willing to 
leave the University and the State from which so much is 
anticipated; and in some of my most serious moods, I shrink 



178 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

from the final step which will part me from colleagues and 
pupils whom I love and from duties which with all their 
embarrassments have been full of pleasure. 



Taking up another thought, the manuscript runs as 
follows : 

The University of California is nominally administered 
by the Regents; it is virtually administered by the legis- 
lature. The Political Code, which went into operation on 
the first of January, 1873, placed the Regents in the posi- 
tion of a commission of the legislature liable to be " sponged 
out " in a single hour of partisan clamor; and the mode of 
procedure during the last session of the legislature, although 
it resulted in nothing which was openly harmful, showed 
clearly what might have happened if the legislature had been 
composed of a more hostile element. Moreover, the revela- 
tions of that session were such that five gentlemen, whose 
names I could give were it not for the confidence with which 
all such communications should be regarded, each of whom 
contemplated large gifts to the University, informed me 
that they could not bestow their gifts upon an institution 
which might be swept away in an hour. 

As I firmly believe that the advancement of higher educa- 
tion in this country depends chiefly upon the munificence of 
wealthy men, I regard the present organization of the Uni- 
versity, which is liable to change at any session of the legis- 
lature, as peculiarly uncertain. It would be easy to suggest 
a remedy for this state of things, and to show by the experi- 
ence of Eastern institutions how public aid can be sup- 
plemented by individual gifts, with a just protection of 
popular rights, and the careful administration of private 
funds. 

The final paragraphs remaining of this manuscript read 
as follows: 

Under all these circumstances, personally assailed by two 
members of the Faculty, insecure in chartered rights of the 






CALIFORNIA 179 

institution, remote from family ties and from those who 
have known me long and well, unable to procure a suitable 
residence at Berkeley without a risk which I am unable to 
assume, I have listened to a call which came to me 
unsolicited. 

A wealthy citizen of Baltimore, who died a few months 
since, has left his fortune for the good of his fellow men. 
One large portion is devoted to a hospital; another to the 
maintenance of a University. Nearly seven millions of 
dollars are consecrated to these two objects. 

The trustees whom he selected are responsible neither 
to ecclesiastical nor legislative supervision; but simply to 
their own convictions of duty and the enlightened judgment 
of their fellow men. They have not adopted any plan nor 
authorized, as I believe, any of the statements which have 
been made as to their probable course, — but they are dis- 
posed to make a careful study of the educational systems 
of the country, and to act in accordance with the wisest 
counsels which they can secure. Their means are ample; 
their authority complete; their purposes enlightened. Is 
not this opportunity without parallel in the history of our 
country ? 

The Overland Monthly in July, 1873, had an editorial 
article entitled " The Gain of a Man," from which we have 
made quotations. In April, 1875, it contained an editorial 
entitled " The Loss of a Man." This article voiced the sen- 
timent of the community at the time, and the passing years 
have not diminished in any wise the judgment then passed. 
It is the conviction of those who know the history of the 
University that we must look back, for the safety with 
which it passed through years of danger as also for the 
growth which marked its course in the face of hostile forces 
as well as under favoring conditions, to the character of the 
foundations that were reared during President Gilman's 
administration. In illustration of the abiding sentiment of 
the community we give the following extracts: 



i8o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Only one man, but we cannot imagine any other that the 
State could worse afford to be without at this momentous 
period of her educational development. Two years ago, 
D. C. Gilman came to California to take presidential charge 
of our young University. He did not found that University, 
but he did more to build it up than anyone else. The difficul- 
ties of his position were almost overwhelming. He met them 
with consummate tact, urbanity, and patience. He made 
men, in both public and private capacities unused to the giv- 
ing mood, surprise everybody, and themselves most of all, 
by exhibitions of unexpected generosity. . . . Success was 
with him every way that he went, and before the touch of 
his achievements the advocates and adherents of ignorance 
and disorder were astonished and confounded. . . . The 
President of the University and his course have had at 
all times the practically unanimous approval and ap- 
plause of the Regents of the University, its professors, its 
students, and of all the well-educated persons of the whole 
State. 

To all these the shock comes suddenly of his farewell. 
From other and broader fields eyes have been fixed on our 
great and wise husbandman, as was indeed inevitable, and 
the word of invitation has come for him. . . . We are glad 
for the sake of the Johns Hopkins University, glad for the 
sake of American education, glad not least for the sake of 
D. C. Gilman; but we are sorry for the sake of the Uni- 
versity of California, sorry for the sake of Californian edu- 
cation, sorry for ourselves, for we have lost a man — a man 
calm, reasonable, dignified, full of resource in every emer- 
gency — a man of surpassing talent for organization, of ex- 
traordinary insight and sympathy as to the strong and weak 
points of colleagues and students, who can do more with 
poor materials than most men can with good — a man with 
incessant industry and persistent acquirement in every direc- 
tion of science and literature — a man who is at once a 
gentleman in the technical and general sense of that term, 
unswerving in integrity, punctilious in honor, faithful in 
friendship, chivalrous and self-contained under attack and 
criticism. He leaves behind, in our University itself and 
in all it today is, in the hearts of his students and friends, 



CALIFORNIA 



181 



in the pages of the Overland, in the heart of hearts of us 
his nearer neighbors and acquaintances, sweet memories 
of a quiet perfect gentleman and genial gifted scholar. 
. . . Though we have lost our man, we have not lost our 
friend. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

The great achievement with which the name of President 
Gilman will always be chiefly associated is that of having 
naturalized in America the idea of a true university. It 
would be difficult, if not impossible, to point to any other 
instance in which a fundamental advance in the aims of the 
higher education in a great nation has been so clearly iden- 
tified with the work of one man. To say this is not to claim 
for Mr. Gilman any great originality of conception, on the 
one hand, or, on the other hand, any monopoly in the work 
of shaping the methods by which the ideas underlying the 
creation of the Johns Hopkins University were brought into 
definite and concrete form. It is perfectly true that the 
time was ripe for the great forward step that was taken in 
Baltimore in 1876; vague aspirations in that direction ex- 
isted in a number of places, and fragmentary efforts toward 
higher university work were made here and there, by some 
exceptionally gifted or exceptionally equipped professor in 
one or another of our leading institutions of learning. But 
there is no telling how long a time the actual ripening might 
have required if it had been left to the gradual increase of 
these sporadic efforts, which had no systematic support, and 
which were not even recognized, by any but the merest hand- 
ful of men, as pointing toward any broad or significant result. 
The first great merit of President Gilman was that, from the 
moment that he was called to Baltimore, the object which 
he set before himself was that of making the institution 
which was to arise there under his guidance a means of sup- 
plying to the nation intellectual training of a higher order 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 183 

than could be obtained at existing colleges and universities, 
and thus distinctly raising the standards of American science 
and scholarship. The wisdom of Johns Hopkins in placing 
no restrictions on the discretion of his Trustees, and the in- 
telligence and broadmindedness of the Trustees themselves, 
gave President Gilman a rare and enviable opportunity to 
carry out this high purpose; but it must not be forgotten 
that, in the practical execution of such a task, there arise 
a thousand difficulties, temptations, and insidious dangers, 
any one of which may portend serious damage, and all of 
which, taken together, may mean utter failure. To be firm 
against local prejudices or desires when in conflict with the 
great end in view; to be uninfluenced by personal claims and 
unafraid of temporary complainings; to disappoint the nat- 
ural hopes of those who were anxious to see imposing build- 
ings and big crowds of students, and to await the recognition 
which attends the genuine achievement of a vital but not 
superficially showy result — these are things that look easy 
in the retrospect, but that did not seem by any means matters 
of course before the event. 

The nature and importance of the service rendered by 
Mr. Gilman to the cause of learning in America did not wait 
long to be recognized by all who were interested in and in- 
formed upon the subject of university education in our coun- 
try. The most ardent of the workers at the new university 
in Baltimore could not possibly have looked for, or even 
desired, a more prompt and hearty appreciation of what 
was being accomplished there than was cheerfully accorded 
by our leading scholars and heads of universities, and indeed 
by the learned world in Europe, almost from the very be- 
ginning. But as to the spirit in which Mr. Gilman under- 
took the work, little or nothing has been said. It is only 
now, with the record of his life before us, that this can be 
made perfectly manifest. The preceding chapters of this 



1 84 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

book must sufficiently show that, at every stage of his devel- 
opment, the desire to be useful — to turn to full account for 
the benefit of his fellow-men whatever talents and powers 
he was endowed with — was the motive that abided with 
him as steadily, and, so to say, automatically, as does with 
most men the motive of personal advancement. The cor- 
respondence that passed between Mr. Gilman and the Trus- 
tees of the Johns Hopkins University discloses with great 
precision the state of his mind when the proposition to 
assume the presidency of a new and important institution of 
learning came before him for consideration: 

Baltimore, 23 d October, 1874. 
President Gilman, 

University of California. 
Dear Sir: 

I believe you are apprised of the existence and character 
of the Institution which I represent. It is the recipient of a 
fund of some three and a half millions of dollars — with no 
shackles of state or political influence, and with no restric- 
tion but the wisdom and sound judgment of the Board of 
Trustees. Not denominational — freed from all sectional 
bias, and entirely plastic in the hands of those to whom its 
founder has entrusted its organization and development. 

Its site is on the limits of our City, on a beautiful and 
improved estate of over three hundred acres; accessible by 
the public conveyances, and tending each year more and 
more to City affiliation. 

By the same mail I send you a pamphlet, which will give 
you all that at present exists in print in relation to it. 

It will inform you of the names of the officers and Board 
upon whom the trust has devolved; and who, if not known 
to you personally, or through others, I may be allowed to 
say, represent the worth and intelligence of our City. I 
state this to preface the remark, that one who should accept 
the position of President and organizer might be assured 
of having to deal with a body of gentlemen who, while at 
all times asserting independent thought and action, would 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 185 

not be disposed to throw obstacles or captious objections in 
the way of the presiding officer. 

In casting around for a suitable person to whom to en- 
trust the development of the Institution, your name has 
been most prominent, coming with the fullest endorsement 
from the heads of the leading universities, East and West; 
and I have been instructed by the Board to open correspond- 
ence with you, looking to your acceptance of the presidency. 

I am aware that your answer implies considerations of a 
practical and business character, which you will allow me to 
treat of in a business way. We are not apprised of the 
amount of the salary of your present position. That is, of 
course, much above the rates of similar posts on this coast; 
and, should you entertain the offer, we should like to have 
your views of what you consider a proper compensation for 
the duties; taking into consideration the lower rates of liv- 
ing here, and all that would suggest itself to you in connex- 
ion with the subject. * v 

If you should not have the means of information in your 
vicinity, among persons familiar with our City, we would 
gladly answer any inquiries you might suggest, before com- 
mitting yourself in reply. 

Should you be embarrassed by a sense of obligation to 
your present position, and a natural delicacy in breaking off 
relations without ample notice; I may say, acceptance would 
not imply your immediate presence here. We do not re- 
ceive the fund from the Executors of the Estate before 
February next, so that, I suppose, your appearance in the 
spring or summer of next year would suffice. 

Trusting that you may consider the proposition favor- 
ably, and asking a reply as soon as is convenient, I am 
Yours, very respectfully, 

Reverdy Johnson Jr., 

Chairman. 

Oakland, California, November 10, 1874. 

Reverdy Johnson, Jr., Esq. 
Dear Sir: 
Your communication in behalf of the authorities of the 
Johns Hopkins University reached me on the fourth instant 



186 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

and has engaged my most serious consideration. The guid- 
ance of such a trust as you represent seems to me one of 
the most important educational responsibilities in our coun- 
try, and I regret exceedingly that the distance between us is 
so great that I cannot propose a personal conference at an 
early day on a subject of so much moment. Will you there- 
fore allow me to write informally and familiarly about it. 

I am deeply sensible of the honor and usefulness of the 
post to which your letter refers and am grateful to you and 
your associates for the confidence which has led them to com- 
municate with me. My personal inclinations would lead me 
to resign my position here at once irrespective of any call 
elsewhere, on the ground that however well we may build 
up the University of California, its foundations are unstable 
because dependent on legislative control and popular clamor. 
These conditions are different from what they were repre- 
sented to be at the time of my coming here, the so-called 
Political Code having essentially altered the Original Act of 
the University. 

On the other hand, my relations to the Board of Re- 
gents of the University of California and my daily occupa- 
tions are so satisfactory that I naturally hesitate about 
changing them. Besides, I do not know how the Regents 
will feel and think in respect to my withdrawal, for I have 
only had the opportunity of consulting one member of the 
Board. 

I must therefore ask a few days' time to consider these 
points. 

But, as I look at the opening sentences of your letter and 
read that this munificent gift is free from any phase of polit- 
ical and ecclesiastical interference, and is to be administered 
according to the judgment of a wise and judicious body of 
Trustees; when I think of the immense fund at your con- 
trol; and when I think of the relations of Baltimore to the 
other great cities of the East, and especially of the relations 
which this University should have to the recovering states 
of the South, I am almost ready to say that my services are 
at your disposal. 

As at present informed, I should think that the Regents 
of this University would prefer to have me remain here 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 187 

until our Commencement next June, but possibly not. They 
may prefer that the change, if there be a change, should not 
be delayed. 

You ask my views in respect to salary. I should prefer 
to say nothing more than this, — that my decision will not 
turn upon any such point. You would wish to have me live 
in a becoming manner and to exercise toward the students 
and friends of the institution a quiet but generous hospi- 
tality. This I should endeavor to do in a spirit which you 
will approve, and for which I am sure you will in some way 
provide. 

The sum of this long letter then is this : — that the over- 
tures of your Committee are favorably entertained and that 
I shall immediately propose to the Regents to release me 
from their service. I shall then be free to accept the posi- 
tion to which you refer. But I hope that a formal and final 
decision will not be required of me, on your part, until we 
have met face to face. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Very Respectfully Yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

In some autobiographical notes referring to this period 
of his career, Mr. Gilman gives the following account 
of his first meeting with the Johns Hopkins University 
Trustees : 

For the sake of a personal interview I made the overland 
journey to Baltimore at the end of December, 1874, and 
after meeting the Trustees was informed that I had been 
selected to lead the new undertaking. 

I well remember that original meeting with the Hopkins 
Trustees. Several of them called upon me the evening after 
my arrival, at the Mount Vernon Hotel, and the next day I 
was escorted to their official room, 25 North Charles Street, 
in a building now destroyed by fire, then known as the Bible 
House. They were seated around the room (all of them 
except Mr. Gwinn, who was detained by illness, being pres- 
ent) and I think that I had never faced a body that seemed 



1 88 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

to me so grave and so dignified as they. After personal in- 
troductions were over, I was asked to give my impressions 
with respect to the situation. I do not find any memorandum 
of my remarks, but the substance of what I said was com- 
municated a few days later to my friend, Mr. Godkin, editor 
of the Nation, and, quite to my surprise, he printed the fol- 
lowing summary, which I did not see until it was published. 
" He [Mr. Gilman] said [to the Trustees] in substance, 
that he would make it the means of promoting scholarship 
of the first order, and this by only offering the kind of instruc- 
tion to advanced students which other universities offer in 
their post-graduate courses, and leaving the kind of work 
now done by undergraduates to be done elsewhere. For 
this purpose he would select as professors men now standing 
in the front rank in their own fields ; he would pay them well 
enough to leave them at their ease as regards the commoner 
and coarser cares; would give them only students who were 
far enough advanced to keep them constantly stimulated to 
the highest point; and he would exact from them yearly 
proof of the diligent and fruitful cultivation of their special- 
ties by compelling them to print somewhere the results of 
their researches. Now, what this means, and how great a 
contribution it would be to the intellectual progress and 
fame of the United States, may be inferred when we say 
that we could at this moment name twenty men, employed 
at small salaries in existing colleges, whose work in certain 
fields of research would be of inestimable value to the sci- 
ence and literature of the world, but who are compelled, in 
order to earn their livelihood, to pass most of their time 
teaching the rudiments to boys, or preparing school-books; 
and that American graduates who would like to pursue cer- 
tain lines of culture to their latest limits are compelled every 
year either to go abroad or content themselves with the 
necessarily imperfect aid which they can get in the post- 
graduate courses from overworked and half-paid professors 
who are doing the duty of schoolmasters. One of the re- 
sults of the present state of things — and none see it more 
clearly than those who, like ourselves, are called on every 
week to compare the results of the intellectual activity of 
Europe with our own — is that our intellectual progress 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 189 

bears no sort of proportion to our progress in the accumula- 
tion of wealth and in the mechanical arts. To the higher 
thought of the world we contribute shamefully little. The 
books that rouse and stimulate men in the various great 
fields of speculation to-day are almost invariably European, 
and it shows what a mental condition some of us have fallen 
into, that it has been seriously proposed, within a few years, 
to remedy this state of things by putting a heavy customs 
duty on the product of the European mind — a proposal 
worthy of the year 1000. We are glad to say that the Hop- 
kins Trustees fell in cordially with Mr. Gilman's terms, and 
offered him the presidency of the new institution, and that 
he will probably accept it. It is a great opportunity, and we 
hope and believe it will be rightly used." [The Nation, 
Jan. 28, 1875.] 

How far the views expressed by the Nation as to the 
proper function of the new university were from being uni- 
versal may be judged from one or two extracts from an ably 
written editorial which appeared, shortly after the election 
of President Gilman, in one of the leading Baltimore papers. 
Two letters having been received by the editor in support 
of the university idea, he closes a discussion of the pros and 
cons of the subject as follows: 

One of our correspondents complains that we have not 
such a school in America, and insists that this opportunity 
for founding one should not be neglected. Without know- 
ing how many of our forty millions of people are thirsting 
for a higher education than can be obtained in any school in 
America, we think that we may safely say that if there had 
been great need for such a school it would have been estab- 
lished long ago. Our great scholars and thinkers find abun- 
dant opportunity for exercising their highest gifts. We do 
not think that there is a really great mind in any part of the 
country that is dwarfed in its growth for want of a school 
of a higher standard than Yale or Harvard. If the intel- 
lectual activity that has obtained in New England for fifty 



i 9 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

years has not laid the foundations of a " school of phi- 
losophy," how can we expect to create such an institution in 
Baltimore, and fill it with students, in a single year? 

Elsewhere in the article we find the following expression 
of opinion relating more especially to the needs of the sec- 
tion of the country of which Baltimore may be regarded as 
the center: 

We do not think that in the present state of intellectual 
culture in this section of the Union such a school as is con- 
templated by our correspondents " O." and " P. G. S." is 
possible. After our University has been in operation fifty 
years it may develop into something like President Gilman's 
ideal, but for the present we must be satisfied with something 
more practical and better adapted to the attainments of our 
youth. When we raise the average intellectual culture of 
the young men of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina 
to a higher standard, we may expect to be able to furnish a 
reasonable number of students for the " school of philoso- 
phy." We have a few of them now, but they are excep- 
tional, we might say phenomenal. The number is entirely 
too small to entitle them to become the exclusive benefici- 
aries of a college endowment of three and a half millions of 
dollars. 

It is proper to add that a very short experience of the 
actual results attained through the devotion of the resources 
of the Johns Hopkins chiefly to the creation of a true uni- 
versity sufficed to make this paper a hearty and constant 
supporter of the University's work. It may be noted by the 
way, as interesting in itself and instructive in its bearing on 
the general question of how endowments should be made, 
that, even while strongly opposing the contemplated plan, 
the paper explicitly recognized the freedom of the Trustees 
to do whatever to them seemed wisest. It urged what it 
regarded as the unquestionable preference or expectation 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 191 

of the founder in his lifetime, but admitted that the entire 
absence of limitations on the Trustees' discretion in his will 
left them perfect liberty of choice. 

Two personal letters, one written after his first talks with 
the Trustees, the other immediately after his acceptance of 
the presidency, may be quoted here: 

Baltimore, Dec. 31, '74. 
Dear Louise : 

This is Thursd. a. m. I arrived here Monday afternoon, 
and all my time has been absorbed with the great problem. 
I have fallen into the hands of most excellent persons, — 
intelligent, sensible, cautious, cooperative. Several came to 
see me the first evening; the next day was spent in a formal 
interview, and in seeing the property; yesterday in a drive 
about town and in a ceremonious dinner party. They unani- 
mously invite me to come, and I think I shall accept; but I 
keep back the formal words until I can confer with the 
Californians. . . . 

Oakland, January 30, 1875. 
My dear Brush : 

I have just mailed a letter signifying my formal accept- 
ance of the J. H. Univ. Pres., my delay having been occa- 
sioned not by hesitation, but by deference to others. I 
would give a great deal for a private talk with you, Whit- 
ney, and others " as of old." I incline more and more to the 
belief that what is wanted in Baltimore is not a scientific 
school, nor a classical college, nor both combined; but a 
faculty of medicine, and a faculty of philosophy; that the 
usual college machinery of classes, commencements, etc. may 
be dispensed with; that each head of a great department, 
with his associates in that department, — say of Mathe- 
matics, or of Language or of Chemistry or of History, etc., 
— shall be as far as possible free from the interference of 
other heads of departments, and shall determine what schol- 
ars he will receive and how he will teach them; that ad- 
vanced special students be first provided for; that degrees 
be given when scholars are ready to be graduated, in one 



1 92 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

year or in ten after their admission. This, as you know, has 
some points akin to the plans of the University of Vir- 
ginia, an institution already favorably considered in Balti- 
more. All this, however, is open for discussion. 

I shall be very desirous at an early day to enlist two or 
three of the future staff, with whom I can confer in the inti- 
macy of long-tried friendship. You will not think it strange 
that I turn to Whitney and you. I do not know whether I 
shall be allowed to make any overtures to you, until the 
Board acts as a body, and I don't know but you will scorn 
the Baltimore proposals as you did those of Cambridge; 
but I think I shall be allowed some counsellors of my own 
choice, — and that if so I can open to you and to Whitney 
most inviting fields of work. 

The minimum income will be $200,000 per year. Reserv- 
ing of that $45,000, — for library, apparatus and adminis- 
tration, — we shall have $155,000 for instruction. This 
would pay four professors, say $6,000 each (=$24,000) ; 
twenty, at salaries ranging from $4,000 to $5,000, aver- 
age $4,500 (=$90,000); twenty "adjuncts," on time 
appointments, three, four or five years, average $2,000 
(=$40,000) ; total $154,000. We could doubtless much 
increase numbers by paying less prices; but I think we should 
pay good salaries as such things go. I hope we shall be able 
to pay medical professors in part from the hospital; and I 
believe that our income will be increased by tuition, gifts, 
and increment on funds. 

I say all this so as to set you to thinking. I don't suppose 
there will be any instruction before the autumn of 1876; and 
I hope not even then. There are others of the " Governing 
Board " whom I shall want to capture; but I shall not let 
on " at present," — for you would not like to have me. But 
bestir yourselves for more funds for the S. S. S. 

Let me hear from you familiarly. 

Yours ever, 
D. C. G. 



In the autobiographical notes already referred to, Mr. 
Gilman gives the following account of what had been done 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 193 

by the Trustees prior to his interview with them, in regard 
to the general plans of the University: 

In the summer of 1874 they invited three gentlemen of 
acknowledged preeminence to visit Baltimore and answer 
face to face such inquiries as the Trustees might propose. 
These gentlemen were President Eliot of Harvard, then at 
the beginning of his great career, President White of Cor- 
nell, who had recently gone through with the perplexing 
problems of a new foundation, and President Angell of the 
University of Michigan, the most flourishing at that time 
of all the State universities. Shorthand notes were taken of 
these three interviews and the record is preserved in the 
archives of the University. In looking them over it is obvi- 
ous that all parties at that time expected to see the Johns 
Hopkins University established at Clifton, the country seat 
of the founder, a beautiful estate lying on the northeast of 
Baltimore, perhaps two miles from the Washington Monu- 
ment. Consequently, almost all the questions and answers 
in these interviews related to the foundation of a suburban 
college where the problems of government and of buildings 
were of immediate importance. The distinction between uni- 
versity work and collegiate work was not clearly recognized, 
although one of the Trustees put this pointed question: — 
" whether the proposed John Hopkins University should be 
created as an institution which should attempt to give a 
higher degree of education than has heretofore been done, 
or whether we should create an institution which should give 
education to a larger number than we would by the other 
plan, it being an important question for the Trustees to de- 
termine." A brief and not conclusive answer was given to 
this enquiry, and the subject was dropped. 

The inquiries submitted to President Eliot by Mr. John- 
son, acting for the Trustees, were these : 

1. As to the relative merits and advantages of the Old 
System and the more advanced systems of Education. 

2 The elective system — how far expedient with a new 
Institution, such as ours. 

3. To what extent should we advance our course, look- 

13 



i 9 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ing to the defective character of our preparatory schools; 
and if desirable to use a special preparatory school. 

4. As to the relative advantages of the commons and 
dormitory system and that of the students living separate. 

All parties, the Trustees on the one hand and their con- 
fidential advisers on the other, had clearly in mind the es- 
tablishment of courses of instruction for undergraduate stu- 
dents and also the subsequent preparation of those who 
wished to become trained as doctors of medicine. 



But there was another question, no less important than 
that of the end to be aimed at, upon which the Trustees 
sought the advice of Presidents Eliot, White and Angell. 
However admirable the design, there could be little hope 
of its successful execution unless the man chosen as head 
of the new university possessed qualifications to match the 
difficulties of the enterprise. In going to the three uni- 
versity presidents above named, the Trustees were evidently 
seeking out three men who had not only shown preeminent 
success in the handling of their own problems, but were the 
three men most fully representing the idea of progress in 
American education. Each of them had been for only a 
few years at the head of a great university, and each of 
them was at that time of life when the full vigor of youth 
is combined with the sagacity and the experience that belong 
to mature manhood. The story has often been told of the 
absolute identity of the responses made by these three men 
to the inquiries of the Trustees upon the subject of the choice 
of a president for the new university. In his address on the 
occasion of the twenty-fifth aniversary of the Johns Hop- 
kins University President Angell tells it in these words: 
" After they came home, they did me the honor to write 
me a letter, and, as I was afterwards informed, they wrote 
a similar letter to President Eliot and to President White, 
asking whom we would suggest for the office of President. 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 195 

And now I have this remarkable statement to make to you ; 
that, without the least conference between us three, we all 
wrote letters, telling them that the one man was Daniel C. 
Gilman, of California. That is one of the few acts of my 
life which I have never regretted." This unanimity of 
choice testifies to something more than the eminent fitness 
of Mr. Gilman for the important post upon which he was 
about to enter. Of that, of course, no evidence is necessary 
or can add to that which is furnished by the history of the 
Johns Hopkins. What it does impress upon the mind, how- 
ever, is the extreme rareness of the qualifications which it 
was necessary to secure if something truly great and valu- 
able to the tountry was to be achieved at Baltimore. Had 
not " the one man " been found and chosen, the history of 
the Johns Hopkins University and of the higher education 
in America would unquestionably have been very different 
from what it has been. But, with these three able and 
authoritative counsellors choosing with one voice the same 
man, it is easy to imagine the feeling of the Trustees that 
the possibility of securing him was the greatest piece of good 
fortune that could have happened for the enterprise in whose 
success they were so deeply interested. 

That the purpose of making the Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity a " means of promoting scholarship of the first order " 
was put forward by Mr. Gilman at his very first interview 
with the Trustees and was cordially accepted by them is 
sufficiently evident from what precedes. But the means by 
which this purpose was to be accomplished still remained, 
even in its large lines, to be determined. When the Univer- 
sity was actually opened the intention of confining the in- 
struction to graduate work, " leaving the kind of work now 
done by undergraduates to be done elsewhere " — as indi- 
cated in the foregoing quotation from the Nation — was 
not strictly carried out; and as regards the graduate work, 



i 9 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

which did from the start form the predominant interest of 
the institution, no definite model for its organization was in 
Mr. Gilman's mind. In the event, it may be said with suffi- 
cient accuracy that the graduate work was carried on in its 
main lines upon the model of the German universities; but 
there was no exact adherence to this model, and, among 
other things, it was not inconsiderably modified by the neces- 
sity of uniting graduate with undergraduate instruction. It 
does not appear, however, that President Gilman had at the 
outset fixed upon the German methods as central in the 
scheme to be adopted. But the keynote of the German sys- 
tem was also the keynote of Mr. Gilman's conception of the 
university that was to be; for he had in view the appoint- 
ment of professors who had shown their ability as investi- 
gators, whose duties as teachers would not be so burdensome 
as to interfere with the prosecution of their researches, whose 
students should be so advanced as to stimulate them to their 
best work, and the fruit of whose labors in the advancement 
of science and learning should be continually manifest in the 
shape of published results. With this general purpose in 
view, Mr. Gilman's first tasks were to lay hold of a set 
of picked men who should give just the impulse that was 
wanted for the making of this new departure in the higher 
education in our country, and at the same time to add to 
his own knowledge of the methods and the ideals prevail- 
ing in European centers of learning. For the accomplish- 
ment of the first of these tasks he did not rely upon any 
routine method for selecting and attracting to Baltimore 
men marked out simply by the eminence of the posts they 
already held, but kept his eyes open to all the varieties of 
chance opportunity that might present themselves. In the 
pursuit of the second purpose he adopted the simple and 
time-honored plan of a trip to Europe. 

The first acquisition made for the future Faculty of the 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 197 

Johns Hopkins — and one of the most important — was 
not made by way of appointment at all; it was as a poten- 
tial professor rather than an actual one that Mr. Gilman got 
hold of Henry A. Rowland. The story of the discovery of 
Rowland is told among the recollections of the early years 
of the Johns Hopkins contained in " The Launching of a 
University " : 

While on service as a member of the Board of Visitors at 
West Point in the summer of 1875, I became well ac- 
quainted with General Michie, then professor of physics in 
the United States Military Academy. I asked him who 
there was that could be considered for our chair of physics. 
He told me that there was a young man in Troy, of whom 
probably I had not heard, whom he had met at the house 
of Professor Forsyth and who seemed to him full of 
promise. 

" What has he done? " I said. 

" He has lately published an article in the Philosophical 
Magazine," was his reply, " which shows great ability. If 
you want a young man you had better talk with him." 

" Why did he publish it in London," said I, " and not in 
the American Journal? " 

" Because it was turned down by the American editors," 
he said, " and the writer at once forwarded it to Professor 
Clerk Maxwell, who sent it to the English periodical." 

This at once arrested my attention and we telegraphed 
to Mr. Rowland to come from Troy, where he was an as- 
sistant instructor in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 
He came at once and we walked up and down Kosciusko's 
Garden, talking over his plans and ours. He told me in 
detail of his correspondence with Maxwell, and I think he 
showed me the letters received from him. At any rate, it 
was obvious that I was in confidential relations with a young 
man of rare intellectual powers and of uncommon aptitude 
for experimental science. When I reported the facts to the 
trustees in Baltimore they said at once, " Engage that young 
man and take him with you to Europe, where he may follow 



198 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

the leaders in his science and be ready for a professorship." 
And this was done. His subsequent career is well known. 

It must have been with the feeling that by a fortunate 
stroke he had been able to make a real beginning towards 
the new university that Mr. Gilman started on his European 
journey a few weeks after this incident. In a letter written 
from London to the Trustees of the University a week after 
landing, he says : 

Mr. Rowland occupied the same state-room with me, and 
though he is very retiring and reticent, we became quite well 
acquainted, and all my impressions in respect to his superior 
mental qualities, especially as a mathematical student and in- 
vestigator in natural philosophy, were confirmed. 

In the same letter, speaking of their visit to Dublin, he 
writes : 

Mr. Rowland directed his attention partly to the instru- 
ment makers. Some of the best telescopes in the world 
are made here, and excellent philosophical apparatus. It 
pleased me to see that the articles which Mr. Rowland has 
published have given him a high place among scientific men. 
These gentlemen all knew him and treated him with great 
consideration. We parted company on Tuesday eve'g. He 
went by invitation to spend some days in Scotland with his 
friend, Prof. Maxwell, of the Univ. of Cambridge and I 
hastened to London (contrary to my original plan) in order 
to have a few days here before the adjournment of 
Parliament. 

In a letter written to the Trustees ten days later there is 
this little reference to Rowland and his first activity in con- 
nection with the Johns Hopkins University: 

Mr. Rowland has joined me after a visit to his friend 
Prof. Clerk Maxwell of Cambridge, whom he found in 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 199 

Scotland a presbyterian elder, — in England a university 
professor. They were together several days. Mr. Rowland 
is now finishing a paper for the Philosophical Magazine of 
London, which he will date from the Johns Hopkins 
University. 

An undated memorandum in a little note book of 1875, 
written doubtless immediately after first hearing of Rowland 
at West Point, is not without interest : 

Rowland of Troy ± 25 yrs. $1600 now paid work not 
apprec'd w'd like chance to work, sent papers to N. H. 
[New Haven] thrice rejected " too young to publish 
such " — 

In the letter last quoted from, Mr. Gilman mentions his 
meeting with two men, both of whom had some influ- 
ence on future developments at the Johns Hopkins — Dr. 
Hooker through being the man who suggested the appoint- 
ment of Sylvester, and Professor Bryce by forming one of 
the group of eminent men whose special courses of lectures 
were so striking and stimulating a feature of the early years 
of the University: 

One day I spent at the Botanical gardens at Kew, taking 
lunch with the Director, Dr. J. D. Hooker, to whom I 
brought a letter of introduction. He called my particular 
attention to the new building put up for the exhibition of 
vegetable products. It is a plain three-story edifice, quite 
devoid of all show, and yet admirably adapted to its purpose. 
It reminded me of the Sheffield building at New Haven in 
this respect, — that it seemed to have been constructed in 
accordance with the wishes of the director and not for the 
gratification of an architect. The collections here brought 
together are not so costly as they are comprehensive and well 
arranged. They exhibit not only the natural objects but the 
purposes to which these vegetable substances are applied. 
If we find a competent young man, we might begin such a 



200 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

museum at an early day in the building at Clifton. The 
popularity of Kew gardens is very great and the exemption 
of the plants from injury seems to me extraordinary. 

On Thursday I breakfasted with Professor Bryce of Ox- 
ford, — a practising solicitor in Chancery who holds a non- 
resident professorship of International Law in the Univer- 
sity, which requires him to give an annual course of twenty 
lectures. He has been in our country and would like to es- 
tablish himself there. His book on the History of the 
Middle Ages (The Holy Roman Empire) is used in many of 
our colleges and is highly esteemed as a work of fine scholar- 
ship and independent thought. He has taken a great deal of 
interest in the educational institutions of the United States 
and seemed to be very much impressed by what I told him 
of the Johns Hopkins University. He says I will find no 
one at Oxford and hardly any one at Cambridge, and he 
urges me to remain until November, for the universities do 
not reassemble till the middle and close of October. My 
passage is taken for October 16, and I shall not change it 
unless advised by you to do so, — except of course for some 
very special reason, now unforeseen. 

Mr. Gilman seems to have made no record, even in the 
barest outline, of his experiences during this important sum- 
mer in Europe. There are a few letters to the Johns Hop- 
kins Trustees from which the above brief extracts are taken 
and some of which will be reproduced below; these, how- 
ever, are not at all in the nature of a report or record, but 
are apparently intended merely to communicate to his corre- 
spondents particular points that would interest them for one 
reason or another. Aside from the letters, all that can be 
found are some very fragmentary notes in a little memoran- 
dum book. These indicate pretty fully the way in which he 
utilized a few busy days in Dublin, the first city that he 
visited. He had comprehensive talks with Professor Ma- 
haffy on Dublin, on Johns Hopkins and on many other 
matters ; and Professor Barrett took him over the Royal Col- 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 201 

lege of Science and the other scientific and learned establish- 
ments of Dublin, into whose arrangements and activities he 
looked with considerable minuteness. His intentness on his 
main purpose did not prevent his visiting also the Queen's 
Institute, an institution for helping women to work; and the 
notes show that he had in mind the possibility at some time 
of utilizing for the good of working women in our own 
country the observations which he made there. But unfor- 
tunately what he saw and did between leaving Dublin about 
July 20 and leaving Paris August 18 is a blank, except for 
two or three letters from London from which quotations 
have been made above. In his autobiographical notes Mr. 
Gilman says: " There is much that might be recalled with 
pleasure in respect to my European journey in the summer 
and early autumn of 1875, but there is not much that it is 
important to record. I visited many of the universities of 
Great Britain and the continent, and was favored by the 
counsel and sympathy of many men distinguished in the 
fields of literature and science. The list would be long if 
I should make a note of all the names that might be in- 
cluded, and it would be unfair if I should exclude the names 
of any of those to whom I was indebted." Accordingly the 
names of the eminent men with whom he talked which may 
happen to be mentioned in this account must not be regarded 
as exhaustive, or even as necessarily being the most impor- 
tant. At Geneva he met Professor W. D. Whitney and his 
young disciple, C. R. Lanman, who became one of the first 
band of fellows at Johns Hopkins and who has now long 
been Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University; and he 
had a long and important talk with Whitney, the memoran- 
dum of which notes among other things that " W. D. W. 
will consider favorably a proposition to go to Baltimore 
yearly." Another interview which bore fruit for the future 
university was that with Professor von Hoist at Freiburg 



202 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

in Baden a week later, of which mention is made in a letter 
reproduced below. 

The original Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins 
University was a body of men of unusually high quality. 
Their characteristics have been set forth by Mr. Gilman in 
a chapter of " The Launching of a University," and in the 
autobiographical notes he speaks of them as having " set an 
example of devotion to the public good and of intelligent 
administration in times of adversity as well as in times of 
prosperity." All of them had genuine interest and pride in 
the success of the great educational enterprise with which 
they were entrusted, and several of them were deeply inter- 
ested in its specific intellectual aims and evidently wished 
to keep in touch with the progress of Mr. Gilman's inquiries. 
His letters to them from the Continent were as follows: 

Geneva, August 23, 1875. 
My dear Sirs: 

I have just arrived here by way of Strassburg, — after 
having passed ten days in Paris, so busily occupied that I 
found but little time for letter writing. During the first few 
days of my visit, " The International Geographic Congress " 
was in session, an assembly of distinguished geographers 
from the various countries of Europe. In connection with 
their meeting, an exhibition was made of maps, charts, in- 
struments, books, models, reliefs, antiquities, and in short 
of all the objects which were supposed to throw light upon 
the structure of the globe, the development of national re- 
sources, and the methods by which geographical science is 
promoted. I spent most of my time for three days in the 
examination of this collection, which was vast and compre- 
hensive, and well arranged in one of the remaining wings of 
the Palace of the Tuileries. It has often seemed to me de- 
sirable that one of the specialties of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity should be the training up of young men to be the 
surveyors and engineers by whose skill our interior country 
will be mapped — in its topographical, geological, agricul- 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 203 

tural and economical aspects; — and having this in mind 
I was fortunate in being able to see how the various govern- 
ments of Europe are prosecuting their work. In one place, 
displayed with an amplitude which was exceedingly conven- 
ient, were the great topographical maps of England, France, 
Switzerland, Austria, Prussia, Russia, the Scandinavian pe- 
ninsulas — and the remote countries tributary to or explored 
by these powers. Our own country appeared to great dis- 
advantage. A few good things " floated in," and were ob- 
scurely exhibited in some remote corner; but they attracted 
the attention of the knowing ones, and when the prizes were 
announced in the presence of Marshal MacMahon and the 
rest, it was a satisfaction to hear the honors awarded to the 
Coast Survey, Dr. Hayden, the Census, Gen. Walker (for 
his statistical atlas) and to some other American works. 

After the Congress was over, my time was largely devoted 
to visiting the college buildings, laboratories, etc. of Paris, 
— but here as in England most of the Professors were absent 
in vacation. An old friend of mine, Professor Reynolds, of 
the University of France and College of St. Louis, helped 
me very much in my inquiries and gave me such an insight 
into the Lyceum or College system, with its extraordinary 
severe discipline, as I had never before attained to. 

I did what I could to collect the recent reports and dis- 
cussions on Instruction in France, and by the aid of a very 
intelligent bookseller made a valuable collection of volumes 
and pamphlets. Among the Institutions which I visited were 
the Sorbonne, the College of France, and the Ecole Cen- 
trale, the Lycee St. Louis, the National Library, the College 
Chaptal (quite a new building), etc. I made some inquiries 
also in respect to the future purchases which we shall of 
course make of models, books, maps, instruments, diagrams, 
etc., but I did not make purchases to any extent worth 
mentioning. 

A noteworthy discussion has been in progress in France, 
respecting what is called the liberty of public instruction in 
the University. Hitherto it has been illegal for the Catholic 
church to maintain University instruction in France. The 
new law makes it possible and the Catholics are endeavoring 
to raise the funds to make a beginning. This law has been 



2o 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

regarded as a Catholic gain, and so doubtless it is; but the 
best people with whom I conversed seemed to regard it 
rather as a gain for liberty, the chief advantage of which 
might first accrue to the Catholics, but the real advantages 
of which would adhere to the whole country. 

Among the new museums opened in France, that at St. 
Germain interested me exceedingly. Here are brought to- 
gether a multitude of objects which Napoleon III collected 
to illustrate his life of Caesar. They are admirably ar- 
ranged as a Franco-Gallic historical museum, and in the 
same building are exhibited hosts of objects illustrative of 
the antiquity of man and including some curious models of 
the caves in which the ancient implements and bones have 
been found. 

I left Paris last Wednesday direct for Strassburg, and 
there under the guidance of one of the professors to whom 
I was introduced saw to advantage the new library which 
has been brought together in the few years which have 
passed since the late war (i 870-1) and which numbers 
the incredible amount of over 350,000 volumes! About 
150,000 volumes were given. I went also to the laboratories 
and lecture rooms, which are excessively plain, but which 
abound in the convenient apparatus for good scientific work. 
I then made a detour to St. Die, where the New World was 
first named America, an inaccessible place in the Vosges, and 
then came here via Colmar, Basel and Berne. The new 
Academy buildings here are noteworthy — and the views 
from the Hotel Beau Rivage are superb ! I go hence to 
Zurich. 

Ever truly yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



Freiburg, Baden, Aug. 30, 1875. 

My dear Sirs : 

From Geneva, I went by the way of Lucerne to Zurich, in 
order to see the famous Polytechnic School there estab- 
lished, which has been so frequently commended by Scott 
Russell and other writers on technical education. Here as 
elsewhere it was vacation and the Professors were absent, 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 205 

but I made two leisure visits to the building, and examined 
its arrangements, and secured the programmes and other 
documents which illustrate the work here done. One fea- 
ture of considerable interest is the partial union of the Poly- 
technic School with the University, reminding one of the 
union of the Sheffeld Scientific School at New Haven with 
Yale College. 

From Zurich I came by Basel to this place. The Univer- 
sity here is one of the oldest in Germany and one of the 
smallest, but it has some excellent professors, and a very 
interesting history. The attraction to me was the Professor 
of History, Von Hoist, with whom I was already acquainted, 
and who was spending his vacation here at work upon the 
continuation of a History of the United States. He has 
given me most of his time for two days, and through his 
valuable suggestions I have obtained an insight into some 
of the tendencies of German university discussion. He 
assures me that the best thinkers, both scientific men and 
literary men, think that too great freedom has been allowed 
to students to choose their own work, so that special educa- 
tion, in distinction from general culture, has been dispro- 
portionately encouraged. He also says that the new French 
law on liberty of University organization is regarded here 
as a great injury to France, and to the cause of human 
progress. 

The weather has been so warm that I incline to give up 
visiting Munich and Vienna, and go hence to Leipsic and 
Berlin, — stopping at Frankfort and perhaps at Heidelberg. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

Vienna, September 13, 1875. 
My dear Sirs : 

My last letter was dated from Freiburg in Baden. I went 
from there to Heidelberg and Frankfort, and then to Ber- 
lin, where I spent more than a week. I felt at home in Ber- 
lin, having passed some months there as a student, and I 
found it quite easy to make acquaintances through my 
brother-in-law, Dr. Thompson, who has resided there for 
four years and is well known to the University professors. 



206 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Berlin has grown of late in all respects, and especially in its 
scientific and educational establishments. The great chemi- 
cal laboratory of Dr. Hofmann, the new Medical School or 
" Anatomie," the great physical laboratory and physiological 
laboratory of Prof. Helmholtz and Du Bois Reymond, the 
projected Natural History Museum, the new Gymnasium 
and Real Schools were all of great interest to me. Of some 
of them I have obtained the plans, — for future reference. 
I was also fortunate in seeing and conversing with several of 
the famous scientific men, though many of them are still 
absent on vacation. I found them already aware of the 
Johns Hopkins foundation and very eager to know how its 
plans are to be developed. Among those whom I met were 
Dr. Gneist, Prof, of Law, who expects to visit our country 
next year, Dr. Weber, the comparative philologist, Baron v. 
Richthofen the geologist, Dr. Neumayer, the government 
hydrographer, Dr. Abel the correspondent of the London 
Times, Professors Ranke and Zumpt of the Fred. Wm. 
Gymnasium, and Director Bonitz who has just been called 
to an important post in the Ministry for Education. With 
them all I discussed educational problems as they now pre- 
sent themselves in Germany. It is interesting to observe 
how alive the best men are to the importance not only of 
maintaining but of improving their High Schools and Uni- 
versities, and how clear are their convictions that a thorough 
general education is essential as the foundation for special 
acquisitions. No part of my visit has been more profitable 
than this German experience, and if I cannot reproduce the 
conversations, I can carry with me to America a number of 
important pamphlets and magazine articles in which these 
and other writers have expressed their views. 

From Berlin I went to Leipsic, which is now considered 
to be the leading University of Germany, and here I was 
greatly impressed by the immense buildings, well arranged 
and well furnished, which have been constructed within a 
few years for laboratory work. In one group, on the out- 
skirts of the city are the chemical laboratory, the pathologi- 
cal laboratory, the physiological laboratory, the physical and 
geological laboratory, the medical school or " Anatomie," 
and the new St. Jacob Hospital. 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 207 

I went from Leipsic to Dresden, and there visited the 
new Polytechnic School building, the latest and probably the 
best of the buildings of this class in Germany. I was so for- 
tunate here as to find the Director, Dr. Zeuner, at home and 
to have the company of one of his colleagues, Dr. Ritter- 
haus, in my visit to the new establishment. In all these visits 
I have secured the latest publications, and as far as possible 
views and ground plans of the buildings. 

The weather has become so fine and cool that I have re- 
cast my plans and decided to visit Vienna and Munich, 
from which I was diverted a few days ago by the heat. 
I am very glad to see Vienna. It has the aspect of more 
life than Berlin. Progress is obvious in every direction, 
tho' for the present business is depressed. The great 
canal which brings the Danube to the city's door has been 
completed within a year, and is now spanned by five superior 
bridges. 

I have not yet seen much of the Institutions except the 
Polytechnicum, but I have been very pleasantly received by 
Dr. von Hochstetter, the geologist, prorector of the Poly- 
technicum, and President of the Geographical Society, and 
by Dr. Hahn, head of the Magnetic Meteorological Obser- 
vatory, and through them I shall soon extend my visits. 
They urge me to go to Gratz, where there is to be, a few 
days hence, a convention of scientific men and physicians of 
Germany. Perhaps I may do so. I hope that all this ob- 
servation will be rich in good fruits at Baltimore. 

Ever truly yours, 
G. Cheston, Esq., &c. &c. D. C. Gilman. 

Munich, September 14, 1875. 

My dear Sirs : 

Vienna has impressed me more than any city I have 
visited by the magnificence of its projects for the encourage- 
ment of education and science. When the plans are carried 
out which have been undertaken, it will surpass most if not 
all the cities of Europe in its material appliances for the pro- 
motion of learning. These plans, at the moment, are em- 
barrassed in consequence of the financial panic which has of 



208 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

late interfered with all business, but it will not probably be 
long before the city and the empire recover their prosperity. 
Quite a new city is growing up in what were until lately the 
suburbs. The magnificent Votif church, the interior of which 
is still unfinished, is the most conspicuous of the new build- 
ings. Quite near to it is the new University building, the 
only new structure for the general purposes of a University 
which I have seen in Europe. It is yet but little more than 
a foundation, though the work is going forward day by day. 
Just beyond it is the new parliament house, and beyond that 
two spacious structures, one designed for the scientific col- 
lections in natural history and the other for the gallery of 
the fine arts. These are all incomplete. The chemical 
laboratory is a new and important structure on the other side 
of the Votif church, and not far beyond, on a lot adjoining 
the great hospital, is a physiological laboratory. A building 
is projected for a physical laboratory, which is temporarily 
established in a private dwelling house, occupying as much 
space very nearly as the two dwelling houses recently pur- 
chased in Baltimore for the University purposes. While 
the new structures are in progress, the lectures are given 
chiefly in the dingy rooms of the old University building in 
the heart of the city, and are attended by more than 2000 
hearers. The Polytechnic School remains in its old place, 
and so does the Agricultural School, to which has just been 
added the Forest School. The city-hospital (of vast ex- 
tent) is the center of medical education for the University, 
but I do not think there is much to learn from its construc- 
tion. A Jewish hospital, erected by Baron von Rothschild, 
recently, is considered so good in respect to light, heat, and 
ventilation, that I took some pains to get the plans of it 
for Mr. King. The meteorological institute, under Dr. 
Hann, is remarkably well equipped with the newest and 
best instruments for the recording of magnetic and meteoro- 
logical phenomena. Some of the city schools are quite note- 
worthy, and special attention has been given to the health of 
the scholars, by improved seats, ventilation, etc. — and 
the Froebel kindergartens have been truly introduced. It 
seemed to me I could spend a month advantageously here. 
The few days which I could command were made profitable 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 209 

by the help of Professors von Hochstetter, Hann, and 
Stricher. My stay here will be brief. 

Yours very truly, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



Returning to England about the middle of September, 
Mr. Gilman had a month before him prior to sailing for 
America. Of his occupations and observations during this 
month little record remains among his papers — nothing 
in connected form except a letter from Rugby to Mr. Gallo- 
way Cheston, President of the Board of Trustees: 

Rugby, October 3, 1875. 
My dear Sir: 

To speak like an Irishman, I have made a flying visit to 
Scotland, in order to get the most out of the few days re- 
maining to me in England, — and have visited Manchester, 
Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Glasgow. I was fortunate in 
all these places to find some at least of the college people to 
whom I was introduced. 

Manchester is of special interest to Baltimore, for it is 
the seat of Owens College, which was founded by a wealthy 
man whose name it bears, about a quarter of a century ago, 
and from a very modest beginning it has attained great 
prominence among the scientific and literary institutions of 
Great Britain. Its instructions for many years were given 
in very modest temporary rooms in the heart of the city, but 
then the confidence of the community was acquired and 
funds were secured for the construction of fine and con- 
venient buildings on the confines of the city. A great deal 
of good sense has been shown in these structures. The chief 
building is on a plan which admits of enlargement, and is a 
dignified stone structure, sufficiently ornamented to be pleas- 
ing, — perhaps a little too "architectural." In the rear 
of it are two plainer buildings which pleased me more than 
the main structure, and seemed to be quite good models. One 
is the chemical laboratory, which was prepared under the 
direction of the Prof, of Chemistry, Dr. Roscoe, (of 

1+ 



210 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

spectrum fame). I have seen larger and showier rooms of 
the sort, but none on which so much thought of the right kind 
appeared to have been expended. The various ingenious 
contrivances which relate to heating, ventilating, supply of 
gas, water, light, and removal of all offensive gases, are 
noteworthy, and show the great advantage of having as a 
planner a professor who looks after these things in advance, 
— instead of an architect who forgets them altogether. In 
addition to the Chem. Laboratory, there is close by a new 
medical college building, in which there was much of the 
same sort of contrivance and forethought. Both these build- 
ings are brick, and of very respectable aspect, — but not at 
all showy in their architecture. 

Edinboro has not much that is new in the educational 
way. Its building for the University is quite old, and tho' 
once a glory of the city is not now adequate to the wants of 
the institution, which maintains its distinction especially in 
medicine. A subscription is in progress for a new building. 

St. Andrews is chiefly interesting , from its historical as- 
sociations, and to me from its two Principals, Principal Tul- 
loch, who has just returned from America, and Principal 
Shairp. The former has just printed the first of two articles 
on American Colleges, and the papers of Edinb. were full of 
extracts from it, — closing, as it happened, with his allusions 
to the Johns Hopkins foundation. 

Glasgow is distinguished among all the cities which I 
have visited by having recently built a great structure, Gothic, 
quadrangular, and very costly, — (a million and a half of 
dollars already) for all departments of the University. It is 
in a new part of the town, Gilmour-hill — and fine costly 
dwellings are in progress around and beyond it. The site 
is admirable, and the building very impressive by its size and 
splendor. But it was worth a visit to Glasgow to hear from 
the lips of the professors their statements as to how ill 
adapted it is to their requirements. Mr. Johnson will re- 
member the Gothic quadrangular plans which we went to 
Hartford to see. Here is a structure in stone like that 
which we saw on paper, and the very difficulties which we 
foresaw are realized in fact. But this is not all. The archi- 
tect, who is a man of fine taste, and great fame, forgot or 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 211 

omitted to make any preparation for the drainage of this 
great structure, and the omission was not detected till every- 
thing was well under way, when the necessities had to be 
supplied at extra cost and trouble. I do not like to commit 
to writing all that I confidentially heard. It is enough to 
say that in a splendid building given by the munificence of 
Glasgow gentlemen, the architects, and not the people for 
whom the college is designed, have had their way. 

It was delightful to me to hear at Manchester from the 
lips of Prof. Roscoe, at Edinboro from the lips of Prof. 
Tait, — both eminent physicists, and more emphatically at 
Glasgow, from Sir William Thomson, the electrician, — 
most eminent of the three, — strong commendations of our 
friend Mr. Rowland. They predict for him a great career. 
Two of his articles appear in the last two numbers of the 
Philosophical Magazine, and all dated from the Johns Hop- 
kins University. In this engagement I am sure we have 
made no mistake. 

Rugby Chapel filled with teachers and pupils has in- 
terested me as much as any sight of the kind I ever saw. 

Ever truly yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

Of Mr. Gilman's visits to Oxford and Cambridge no 
record whatever seems to have been preserved except the 
mere names of some of the men whom he met, jotted down 
in his memorandum book. These included at Oxford Dr. 
Jowett, Rolleston and Mark Pattison; at Cambridge Pro- 
fessor Sidgwick, George Darwin, the great mathematician 
Cayley and his fellow-mathematicians Todhunter and Fer- 
rers, and Professor Stokes, the great mathematical physicist. 
A like mere memorandum of names shows that he met at 
the famous X Club Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall and 
others. In " The Launching of a University " Mr. Gilman 
refers to this dinner at the X Club to which he was invited 
by Professor Tyndall, his " confidential talk " with Dr. 
Jowett, and his visit to Sir William Thomson (afterward 



212 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Lord Kelvin) in his laboratory at the University of Glas- 
gow, as apparently the most cherished recollections of his 
British experiences. 

There is, however, no room for doubt as to what consti- 
tuted the most important and the most interesting result of 
Mr. Gilman's month in England; and it happens too that 
what seems to have been the original source of the sugges- 
tion of Sylvester for the professorship of Mathematics can 
be pointed to in documentary form. The following letter 
from Professor Hooker probably reached Mr. Gilman im- 
mediately on his arrival in England from the Continent: 

Royal Gardens, Kew, Sept. n, 1875. 
My dear Mr. President: 

Apropos of your mission to England, and the object 
which you told me that you had in view, I think that I can 
perhaps help you to a Professor of Mathematics of the very 
highest distinction and order, and a practiced teacher. 

My friend, J. J. Sylvester, F.R.S., LL.D. (Correspond- 
ent of the Institute of France), who was Professor at Wool- 
wich, is tired of inaction, and would gladly accept a suffi- 
ciently paid professorship in America. I have known him 
for years myself and can truly say that he will be a national 
loss to England if you secure him, as I believe you may. His 
address is Athenaeum Club, London, S. W. 

Professor Sylvester's health is admirable and his energies 
unimpaired. He is a little over middle age I should say, as 
age goes in this country, between fifty and sixty I suppose, 
hale, active and strong. 

Very sincerely, 

Jos. D. Hooker. 
President Gilman, &c. 

Sylvester was a little older than Dr. Hooker thought, for 
he was born September 3, 18 14; but that his energies were 
unimpaired was amply demonstrated when he came to 
assume the duties of the new professorship across the sea. 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 213 

He was much the oldest member of the Faculty; but what- 
ever might be the comparative value, all things considered, 
of his contribution to the upbuilding of the Johns Hopkins, 
there could be no question that as a source of intellectual 
enthusiasm Sylvester stood out above all his colleagues. 
Throughout the seven years of his residence in Baltimore 
he took up one difficult research after another with such 
ardor, devotion and persistence as might well be the envy 
of the youngest of his fellow workers. The appointment 
of Sylvester was strongly urged by Benjamin Peirce, the 
foremost of American mathematicians, and by Joseph 
Henry, who might well be called the dean of American men 
of science; but it was not without some misgiving that Mr. 
Gilman came to the conclusion that it would be wise to invite 
him to be one of the little group of men into whose hands 
the future of the great enterprise was to be committed. 
" More than one American correspondent," he says, 1 " re- 
minded me of the importance of cooperation among the 
members of a faculty, with dark hints of possible efferves- 
cence. Before asking him to this country I made many in- 
quiries among his English friends respecting his temper, and 
I received very guarded answers, which awakened the alarm 
they were designed to allay. Nevertheless, the evidence of 
Sylvester's intellectual brilliancy and of his renown were 
so great that the possibility of discord seemed infinitesimal 
in comparison with his merits; so he was called and so he 
came." That President Gilman, with his sense of order, his 
supreme instinct for organization, and his knowledge of 
the difficulties that were so likely to be met with under the 
best of circumstances, should have been willing to take the 
risks here indicated is one of the most notable facts con- 
nected with his work in giving shape to the new University. 
As a matter of fact, the eccentricities of conduct and the 

1 " The Launching of a University," p. 66. 



2i4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

peculiarities of temper which had been hinted at were mani- 
fested in full measure in the course of Sylvester's seven 
years' connection with the University; but it is pleasant to 
be able to record the fact that this did not disturb, except 
possibly momentarily, the cordiality of the relations between 
him and President Gilman. It was plain in many ways to 
their contemporaries at the University that Mr. Gilman felt 
a full and genuine sympathy with Sylvester's intellectual 
ardor and a true appreciation of the character of his achieve- 
ments, though in a field so remote from the apprehension of 
any except advanced mathematicians. It required some- 
thing more than tact to maintain unimpaired the relation of 
hearty cooperation which existed throughout between the 
organizing head of the University and the splendid but 
erratic genius whose presence furnished so much of the in- 
spiration of its early years. 

The following letter from Professor Peirce, dated Octo- 
ber 4, 1875, seems to show quite plainly that his suggestion 
of the appointment of Sylvester was independent of any 
knowledge that it had already been suggested by Hooker; 
and it has intrinsic interest quite aside from this circumstance. 

President Gilman. 
My dear Sir: 
Hearing that you are in England I take the liberty to write 
you concerning an appointment in your new university, which 
I think it would be greatly to the benefit of our country and 
of American science if you could make. It is that of one of 
the two greatest geometers of England, J. J. Sylvester. If 
you inquire about him you will hear his genius universally 
recognized, but his power of teaching will probably be said 
to be quite deficient. Now there is no man living who is more 
luminous in his language, to those who have the capacity to 
comprehend him, than Sylvester, provided the hearer is in 
a lucid interval. But as the barn-door fowl cannot under- 
stand the flight of the eagle, so it is the eaglet only who will 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 215 

be nourished by his instruction. But as the greatness of a 
university must depend upon its few able scholars, you can- 
not have a great university without such great men as 
Sylvester in your corps of teachers. Among your pupils, 
sooner or later, there must be one who has a genius for 
geometry. He will be Sylvester's special pupil, the one pupil 
who will derive from his master knowledge and enthusiasm 
— and that one pupil will give more reputation to your in- 
stitution than the ten thousand who will complain of the 
obscurity of Sylvester, and for whom you will provide an- 
other class of teachers. Some men regard this peculiarity 
of the masters of geometry, to be obscure to ordinary schol- 
ars, as a geometric peculiarity. But is it not the same in all 
departments to him who looks into the depths of the human 
understanding? Can every dunce read Shakespeare and 
Goethe and Demosthenes and iEschylus? Is not the true 
reading of the princes of thought a royal attribute — which 
only princes possess in their lucid intervals? I hope you will 
find it in your heart to do for Sylvester what his own coun- 
try has failed to do — place him where he belongs, and the 
time will come when all the world will applaud the wisdom 
of your selection. 

Yours very faithfully and most respectfully, 

Benjamin Peirce. 



The actual offer of the professorship of mathematics to 
Sylvester was not made until after Mr. Gilman's return to 
Baltimore and consultation with the Trustees, and it was 
only after a correspondence of several weeks that the matter 
was closed by Sylvester's acceptance. Accordingly it was 
not Sylvester but Gildersleeve who was the first professor 
in the Johns Hopkins University. Very soon after his return 
Mr. Gilman had entered into correspondence with Professor 
Gildersleeve. They met by appointment at Washington, 
December 8, 1875, and it is evident that their discussion 
of the situation was mutually satisfactory, for three days 
later Professor Gildersleeve sent President Gilman his ac- 



216 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ceptance. " To such confidence as you have reposed in me," 
he says in a personal letter accompanying his letter of accept- 
ance, " my whole nature responds with all its earnestness 
and I shall enter upon my new duties with heightened inter- 
est because my success will be in a measure yours." Some 
interesting points concerning tentative plans of the Univer- 
sity come up in letters written by Professor Gildersleeve to 
President Gilman shortly after his appointment. " I do 
not see," he says in one of them, " why we might not make 
a respectable beginning even though we may have to work 
with rather unpromising material. For my part I should 
be disinclined to publish an ambitious university programme, 
which might fall through as at Harvard for lack of students. 
By far the best plan would be the one which you suggested. 
Pick out the best material that offers and organize that for 
university work. The rest must be ground through the 
college mill. Of course the university classes would neces- 
sarily be very small — but the lower courses might be so 
arranged as to bring every student into personal contact with 
the presiding professor. In a few years, by a system of 
cooperation with the colleges, we might gradually dispense 
with the more elementary classes." A personal note is 
struck in some of the letters. " My visit to Baltimore," he 
says, referring to the occasion of President Gilman's in- 
auguration, February 22, 1876, "was not only a rare en- 
joyment but a powerful incentive to hard work for the Johns 
Hopkins, and I certainly did not dream that so much en- 
thusiasm was left in me. How much of that enthusiasm, 
however, is due to your personal magnetism, how much to 
scientific interest, remains to be seen. At all events I do not 
care to make the analysis just now." 

With Sylvester representing the highest aspirations in 
pure mathematics, and with Gildersleeve standing for a rare 
combination of philological and literary distinction, the 



BEGINNINGS OF JOHNS HOPKINS 217 

ancient and honorable university interests of mathematics 
and classics had been notably cared for in the initial organi- 
zation of the future University. It remained to make 
equally effective provision in the three great departments 
of the sciences of nature, — physics, chemistry and biology. 
For the professorships at the head of these departments 
younger men were chosen, men who still had their eminence 
to establish. All three of them were under thirty years of 
age. Of Rowland a good deal has already been said in the 
preceding pages. It needs only to be further mentioned that 
the tentative beginning which took the shape of his visit to 
Europe in Mr. Gilman's company developed into his installa- 
tion as Professor of Physics at the opening of the Univer- 
sity, a post which he held until his untimely death and in 
which he did memorable work and won the highest dis- 
tinction. For the chair of chemistry the choice fell upon 
Ira Remsen, then recently returned from his studies in Ger- 
many and from his experience as an assistant in chemistry 
at the University of Tubingen, and at the time filling a pro- 
fessorship at; Williams College. It was upon the recom- 
mendation of Huxley that H. Newell Martin was called 
from England to institute the department of biology. How 
completely the wisdom of the choice was demonstrated in 
the case of both these men every one knows who is ac- 
quainted with the history of the work done in the depart- 
ments of chemistry and biology of the Johns Hopkins. The 
success of both these departments in fields of work com- 
paratively new in America surpassed, from the beginning, 
the most sanguine expectations that may have been enter- 
tained of it. The original Faculty of six professors — in 
addition to the President — was completed by the appoint- 
ment of Charles D. Morris as Collegiate Professor of Latin 
and Greek. In this appointment the college idea was explic- 
itly recognized; and Professor Morris represented, not only 



2i 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

in the duties which he officially undertook but in the type of 
his personality and the nature of his personal influence in 
the University, an element quite distinctive. An ideal ex- 
ample of the gentleman and scholar, his geniality and kind- 
liness, the youthful and almost naive enthusiasm of his 
interest in the work of those about him, from the youngest 
to the oldest — these qualities, no less than his efficiency as 
a teacher, brought into the atmosphere of the University 
something that was of inestimable value in its life as a 
whole. With these six professors as the core of the new 
University were associated a number of younger men, who 
from the beginning took part in the work of instruction and 
to whose numbers additions were made from time to time; 
and in the fall of 1876 the Johns Hopkins University was 
launched upon its career. 



CHAPTER V 

A QUARTER-CENTURY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESIDENCY 

It would be out of place in this biographical record either 
to go into details in regard to the work of the Johns Hop- 
kins University or to undertake to trace out the particular 
contributions, by President Gilman on the one hand and by 
one or another member of the Faculty on the other, to the 
shaping of its character and the determination of its poli- 
cies. On the latter head it is sufficient to say that his was 
the coordinating mind and the decisive voice; that the vari- 
ous problems which had to be dealt with in the early years 
constantly engaged to the utmost his powers and his inter- 
est; that the policy of taking time to permit the beginnings 
to develop, of letting the University grow into its true self 
rather than forcing it into a rigid mould, appealed to him 
particularly; and that it is to the combination of the caution 
involved in this policy and the boldness of his fundamental 
purpose that the signal success achieved by the University 
from the beginning must be ascribed. But in regard to the 
distinctive features of the Johns Hopkins, while they may 
not be described in detail, some statement is necessary. 

So great a change has taken place throughout the country 
in the thirty-three years since the foundation of the Johns 
Hopkins that it is difficult to realize that non-sectarianism, 
which is now almost universal, was then an exception in our 
colleges and universities. It was a conspicuous feature of 
the Johns Hopkins from the start. Not that the Trustees 
or the President were not religious men, — quite the con- 
trary. Of the fundamental part which religion played in 
Mr. Gilman's life nothing need be said at this point; and 



220 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

of the twelve Trustees, seven were Friends, four were at- 
tendants at Episcopal churches and one was an Independent 
Presbyterian. The entire exclusion, however, not only of 
sectarianism but of anything savoring in the least of reli- 
gious compulsion or pressure was a feature of the Univer- 
sity from the beginning. Those who remember the early 
years of the University will recall the notice that was posted 
on the bulletin board at the start and which was renewed 
each successive year for some time. It was worded some- 
what as follows: "A brief religious service will be held 
every morning at 8.45 in Hopkins Hall. No notice will be 
taken of the presence or absence of anybody." In this simple 
and unobtrusive way the attitude of the University was de- 
clared, with the result of putting everybody completely at 
his ease on the subject. That a certain amount of prejudice 
or hostility to the University was aroused in some quarters 
by its position in regard to religion was apparently due less 
to its actual policy than to an accidental circumstance. Mr. 
Gilman has told the story of the way in which the choice of 
Professor Huxley as the orator of the University's opening 
day in September, 1876, brought down indignant condemna- 
tions from persons with whom the name of Huxley stood 
for agnosticism or irreligion rather than for biological sci- 
ence and the advancement of learning: 

We had sowed the wind and were to reap the whirlwind. 
The address had not been accompanied by any accessories 
except the presentation of the speaker, no other speech, no 
music, no opening prayer, no benediction. I had proposed 
to two of the most religious trustees that there should be 
an introductory prayer, and they had said no, preferring that 
the discourse should be given as popular lectures are given 
at the Peabody Institute and elsewhere, without note or 
comment. 

It happened that a correspondent of one of the religious 
weeklies in New York was present, and he wrote a sensa- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 221 

tional letter to his paper, calling attention to the fact that 
there was no prayer. This was the storm-signal. Many- 
people who thought that a university, like a college, could 
not succeed unless it was under some denominational control, 
were sure that this opening discourse was but an overture to 
the play of irreligious and anti-religious actors. Vain it was 
to mention the unquestioned orthodoxy of the Trustees, and 
the ecclesiastical ties of those who had been selected to be 
the professors. Huxley was bad enough; Huxley without 
a prayer was intolerable. 

Some weeks afterward a letter came into my hands ad- 
dressed to a Presbyterian minister of Baltimore, by a Pres- 
byterian minister of New York. Both have now gone where 
such trifles have no importance, so I venture to give the let- 
ter, quoting from the autograph. The italics are mine: 

"New York, 3 Oct., 1876. 

'* Thanks for your letter, my friend, and the information you give. 
The University advertised Huxley's Lecture as the 'Opening' and so 
produced the impression which a Baltimore correspondent increased by taking 
the thing as it was announced. // was bad enough to invite Huxley. It 
were better to have asked God to be present. It would have been absurd to 
ask them both. 

"I am sorry Gilman began with Huxley. But it is possible yet to re- 
deem the University from the stain of such a beginning. No one will be 
more ready than I to herald a better sign." 

It was several years before the black eye gained its natural 
colour. People were on the alert for impiety, and were dis- 
appointed to find no traces of it — that the faculty was 
made up of just such men as were found in other faculties, 
and that in their private characters and their public utter- 
ances there was nothing to awaken suspicion or justify mis- 
trust. It was a curious fact, unobserved and perhaps un- 
known, that four of the first seven professors came from the 
families of gospel ministers, and a fifth of the group of six 
was a former Fellow of Oriel and a man of quite unusual 
devoutness. The truth is that the public had been so wonted 
to regard colleges as religious foundations, and so used to 
their control by ministers, that it was not easy to accept at 
once the idea of an undenominational foundation controlled 
by laymen. Harvard and Cornell have both encountered the 



222 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

like animosity. At length the prejudice wore away without 
any manifesto or explanation from the authorities. From 
the beginning there was a voluntary assembly daily held for 
Christian worship; soon the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation was engrafted; the students became active in the 
churches and Sunday-schools and charities of Baltimore; 
some graduates entered the ministry, and one became a 
bishop, while the advanced courses in Hebrew, Greek, his- 
tory, and philosophy, were followed by ministers of many 
Protestant denominations, Catholic priests and Jewish rab- 
bis. It is also gratifying to remember that many of the min- 
isters of Baltimore, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, 
and Baptist, have intrusted their sons to the guidance of the 
local seminary whose influence and instructions they could 
readily watch and carefully estimate. As I consider the situ- 
ation, I wish it were possible for religious people to agree 
upon what should be taught to the young, in respect to re- 
ligious doctrine, or at least to unite in religious worship, yet 
I cannot forget that, in ages and in countries where one au- 
thority has been recognized and obeyed, neither intellect nor 
morals have attained their highest development. 1 

Mr. Gilman in the autobiographical notes tells of his first 
meeting with Huxley in England: 

I was introduced to Professor Huxley at the dinner table 
of Sir Lauder Brunton. He was then in full activity as a 
writer and teacher, and I asked permission to follow one of 
his lectures at South Kensington. They were given very 
early in the morning, — at nine o'clock, unless I am mis- 
taken. The exact subject I cannot tell, but it involved a 
minute delineation of the differences of vegetable and animal 
life in the earliest stages. The lecturer had before him a 
slip of paper, about as large as the palm of his hand, and this 
contained all his notes. I was impressed by the grace of his 
delivery; there were no " hems " nor " haws," no repetition, 
no corrections. Every word came into its place with perfect 
fitness. After the lecture was over, he invited me to his 
study, and there I ventured to say to him, " Will you tell me 

1 "The Launching of a University," pp. 22-24. 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 223 

how you have acquired this exactness of speech? Even to 
one who knows nothing of the subject, you have made, ap- 
parently without effort, a perfectly clear and interesting 
statement, — but without any manuscript." In his answer 
he told me that in early life he could not speak in public. 
An older brother could " bring down the house," but he could 
not. His success was the result of effort. " I always go be- 
fore an audience," he continued, " with a definite scheme of 
what I am to say, and I know just what illustrations I am 
to introduce and where." " But," said I, " that does not 
explain your accurate choice of words, as it seems ex tem- 
pore, when some very nice distinctions must be made." 
" Oh," said he, " I write out all those passages." " And 
commit them to memory? " I asked. " Not at all," was his 
reply, " but having carefully written what I wish to say, I 
avoid errors or inaccuracies on this side and the other. 
Often, better words and phrases occur to me in speaking with 
the stimulus of an audience than I have thought of at my 
desk." These hints of Huxley's methods I have often given 
to young men, for he was the most felicitous of lecturers on 
science whom I ever heard. 

Among the subjects touched upon by Professor Huxley 
in his address was the question of sinking large sums of 
money in buildings. From what Huxley says on this topic 
it is evident that the policy of concentrating the resources of 
the new institution upon intellectual activity, leaving all 
architectural ambitions for the future, had been deliberately 
adopted. Professor Huxley said: 

At the commencement of this address I ventured to as- 
sume that I might, if I thought fit, criticise the arrangements 
which have been made by the board of trustees, but I con- 
fess that I have little to do but to applaud them. Most wise 
and sagacious seems to me the determination not to build for 
the present. It has been my fate to see great educational 
funds fossilise into mere bricks and mortar, in the petrify- 
ing springs of architecture, with nothing left to work the 
institution they were intended to support. A great warrior 



224 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

is said to have made a desert and called it peace. Adminis- 
trators of educational funds have sometimes made a palace 
and called it a university. If I may venture to give advice in 
a matter which lies out of my proper competency, I would say 
that whenever you do build, get an honest bricklayer, and 
make him build you just such rooms as you really want, leav- 
ing ample space for expansion. And a century hence, when 
the Baltimore and Ohio shares are at one thousand premium, 
and you have endowed all the professors you need, and built 
all the laboratories that are wanted, and have the best 
museum and the finest library that can be imagined; then, 
if you have a few hundred thousand dollars you don't know 
what to do with, send for an architect and tell him to put up 
a facade. If American is similar to English experience, any 
other course will probably lead you into having some stately 
structure, good for your architect's fame, but not in the least 
what you want. 

It is interesting to note in this connection an extract from 
a report of the Maryland State Board of Education, dated 
January 15, 1874, which Mr. Gilman jotted down in his 
memorandum book of 1875 without comment: " With ample 
means at their command it will not be difficult for the trus- 
tees to raise an architectural pile that shall be a lasting 
memorial of its founder, and a fitting temple for the votaries 
of learning to worship in." Of course this was noted by 
Mr. Gilman as an impressive statement of the thing that was 
to be avoided. On the subject of building Mr. Gilman says 
in the autobiographical notes: 

The Trustees decided to postpone the question of build- 
ings until the scope of the proposed establishment should 
become more definite, and accordingly they bought two 
dwelling houses on the west side of Howard Street, near 
Monument, put a new roof over them and built an annex 
which contained an assembly hall, seating when crowded two 
hundred persons, a well-lighted room for work in biology and 
an apartment, with annexes, which would serve as reading 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 225 

room and would hold a library of forty or fifty thousand 
volumes. This central site proved to be so convenient that 
the question of removal to Clifton was postponed for several 
years and then it was brought to the front by the necessity 
of providing more ample laboratories. I was confined to my 
room by a serious and prolonged illness while the discussion 
was in progress, and a note was brought to me saying that 
the Trustees had determined to buy adjacent property and 
proceed to build the buildings required for Chemistry and 
Biology. This was the beginning of a long controversy 
between those who desired that Clifton should become 
at once the site of the University and those who would 
postpone the decision. It will do no good to revive in this 
place the memories of an unpleasant state of affairs which 
continued for several years, and was not closed until the sale 
to the City of Baltimore of Clifton for a park. Gradually 
pieces of property adjacent to the original purchase were 
secured and the very practical but not very beautiful build- 
ings now occupied were successively constructed. 



The impression seems to prevail widely that undergradu- 
ate instruction was introduced into the University only some 
years after its opening, so that the establishment of an 
undergraduate department was a modification of the plan 
at first adopted. This impression is not unnatural, as it is 
true that all the stress was laid on the organization of gradu- 
ate work, and it was felt by the University as well as by the 
outside world that this was the great service which the Johns 
Hopkins University was rendering to the country. The 
fact, however, is that candidates for the A.B. degree were 
received from the very beginning; and there were certainly 
two very weighty reasons for doing so. One was the desir- 
ability of establishing closer relations with the local com- 
munity, and a more directly useful activity in Maryland and 
the States adjacent to the south, than could be attained if the 
teaching work of the University were limited entirely to 

*5 



226 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

graduate instruction. The other reason concerns the effi- 
ciency of the graduate department itself; and, whether dis- 
tinctly in view from the beginning or not, is certainly pointed 
out by actual experience. The standards of our colleges are 
so various that the mere classification of a student as gradu- 
ate on account of his right to place the first two letters of 
the alphabet after his name furnishes little assurance of his 
having either the knowledge or the training necessary for 
successful graduate work. Among the graduates from the 
smaller colleges of the South and West, and of not a few 
Eastern colleges, the opportunity to supplement and rectify 
the training they had received by attendance upon under- 
graduate classes during the beginnings of their graduate 
work was invaluable; and, as has been said above, this 
opportunity was provided from the beginning. Thus the 
undergraduate department became at once a local college 
of importance, a feeder to the University in its higher work, 
and, in view of conditions which could not be overlooked, 
a most valuable adjunct to this work itself. At various 
times in the history of the University the question has been 
more or less mooted whether the existence of the under- 
graduate department was beneficial to the University; but 
doubt on this head has never grown to serious dimensions, 
and the undergraduate work has always formed an impor- 
tant and not neglected part of the University's activity. 
Begun in a tentative way, it soon attained definite organiza- 
tion and was the object of as careful attention and serious 
thought on the part of the President and Trustees as any 
other part of the work. Of course the central question to 
be disposed of in regard to it was that of the shape which 
the elective system should take ; and this problem was solved 
in a clean-cut way, adopting neither the extreme form of the 
elective system represented by Harvard nor the opposite 
extreme of giving students no choice except that between the 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 227 

11 old college course " and a " scientific course," such as in 
many colleges has been offered as leading to the Ph.B. 
degree. The University made a valuable contribution to 
the organization of college education by instituting the 
" group system." Under this system, as the name implies, 
a student is given the choice of six or seven courses, or 
groups of studies, each being characterized by the domi- 
nance of two subjects — as, for instance, Greek and Latin, 
Latin and Mathematics, Mathematics and Physics, History 
and Political Economy — designated as "major," while a 
certain number of other prescribed studies are ranked as 
" minor," the whole being designed to form a somewhat 
harmonious aggregate. Certain required studies form part 
of every group; and a certain amount of deviation is per- 
missible also in the way of substitution, so that the elasticity 
of the system is somewhat greater — though not much — 
than appears on the face of it. The same degree, that of 
Bachelor of Arts, is attained in all the groups. This system 
has been adhered to by the University to the present time 
and has been imitated elsewhere; and it seems safe to say 
that at no time has it been more widely looked upon as 
a wise solution of the problem of elective study than at 
present. 

The undergraduate work, however, was of course a secon- 
dary matter. The vital force of the University was directed 
in the main to the building up in America of a true univer- 
sity, — a university permeated by the spirit of the univer- 
sities of Germany, with research as the center, the heart, of 
the whole organism. An exact imitation of the German 
university was neither attempted nor desired; but the con- 
clusion was soon arrived at that the German doctorate of 
philosophy must be set up as the fixed goal of students, and 
that the German Seminar must be one of the chief instru- 
ments of instruction. That before receiving the university 



228 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

degree the candidate must have shown the training of an 
investigator in his chief subject, as well as the acquisition 
of a certain amount of specialized knowledge, was thus fun- 
damental in the Johns Hopkins plan from the beginning; 
it need hardly be added that, as a matter of course, produc- 
tive research was, generally speaking, understood to be an 
indispensable part of the activities of the professorial body. 
The project of establishing twenty fellowships, to be held 
for a period of from one to three years by young men of 
good attainments and of unusual promise, had been adopted 
by Mr. Gilman before he had gathered his professors to- 
gether, and it proved to be a factor of the first importance 
in the creation of that inspiriting atmosphere which distin- 
guished the early years of the Johns Hopkins, and which 
all who shared in the labors and the enthusiasms of that 
time cherish among the brightest memories of their lives. 
The fellowship and scholarship method of attracting stu- 
dents has, in the past thirty years, spread to great dimen- 
sions in our country, with results that are not without their 
objectionable side; but neither at the Johns Hopkins nor 
elsewhere is the idea of the fellowship now what it was when 
Mr. Gilman gathered in the aspiring young men who held 
the Johns Hopkins fellowships in the first few years. It 
may be somewhat difficult to point out the exact difference; 
but perhaps this may best be indicated by saying that the 
Johns Hopkins fellowship in those days did not seem a 
routine matter, an every-day step in the regular process 
toward a doctorate or a professorship, but a rare and pecul- 
iar opportunity for study and research, eagerly seized by 
men who had been hungering and thirsting for such a possi- 
bility. Of course, not every one of the twenty was a rara 
avis, nor was every one equally enthusiastic. But, on the 
whole, here was a little phalanx of gifted and ardent young 
men gathered from every quarter of the country, some of 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 229 

them fresh from study in Germany, and nearly all filled with 
the idea that a new world was opening out for American 
learning and that they were the first to be admitted to the 
privilege of entering upon its intellectual joys. It may not 
be out of place to quote from an article written fifteen years 
later by Professor Royce, who was one of the first band of 
fellows, a few sentences in which he records his impressions 
of those early days : 

The beginning of the Johns Hopkins University was a 
dawn wherein " 't was bliss to be alive." Freedom and wise 
counsel one enjoyed together. The air was full of note- 
worthy work done by the older men of the place, and of 
hopes that one might find a way to get a little working- 
power one's self. . . . One longed to be a doer of the word, 
and not a hearer only, a creator of his own infinitesimal frac- 
tion of a product, bound in God's name to produce it when 
the time came. 1 

Almost as essential to the upbuilding of the university's 
distinctive work as the arrangements directly pertaining to 
it was the initiation of a series of scientific journals, the first 
of their kind in America. The number of journals devoted 
each to its own special branch of science and scholarship 
now issued in this country is so great as sometimes to seem 
almost appalling, but when the work of the Baltimore uni- 
versity was begun journals of this nature were unknown 
among us. The stimulus they give to the prosecution of 
research is quite beyond computation, and it is by no means 
the least of Mr. Gilman's services that he felt a keen reali- 
zation of this fact and acted upon it. The University had 
not been in existence two years when the American Journal 
of Mathematics was instituted with Professor Sylvester as 
editor; and the American Chemical Journal under the 

1 Scribner's Magazine, 1891, Vol. X. p. 383. 



230 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

editorship of Professor Remsen and the American Journal 
of Philology under that of Professor Gildersleeve followed 
in the two succeeding years. Concerning the starting of the 
Journal of Mathematics — which, as the father of all that 
great brood of learned journals that have since overspread 
the country, deserves special attention — two quotations will 
be of interest. One is from the stenographic notes that 
have been preserved of the farewell talk of Professor Syl- 
vester at the reception given him by the University, Decem- 
ber 20, 1883, on the eve of his departure for England in 
pursuance of his appointment as Savilian Professor of 
Geometry at Oxford: 

And now, I cannot content myself with referring only to 
the labors of my colleagues, I cannot refrain from saying 
how much we are indebted to the labors of our President. 
If this University is pursuing a great idea, and is calculated 
to produce a lasting impression upon the intellectual forces 
of this country, I say what I have said at all times and sea- 
sons, in sunshine and cloud, when I have been on the most 
friendly terms with him and when we have had occasional 
tiffs, I say that that is due to our President. 

You have spoken about our Mathematical Journal. Who 
is the founder? Mr. Gilman is continually telling people 
that I founded it. That is one of my claims to recognition 
which I strenuously deny. I assert that he is the founder. 
Almost the first day that I landed in Baltimore, when I dined 
with him in the presence of Reverdy Johnson and Judge 
Brown, I think, from the first moment he began to plague 
me to found a Mathematical Journal on this side of the 
water something similar to the Quarterly Journal of Pure 
and Applied Mathematics with which my name was con- 
nected as nominal editor. I said it was useless, there were 
no materials for it. Again and again he returned to the 
charge, and again and again I threw all the cold water I 
could on the scheme, and nothing but the most obstinate per- 
sistence and perseverance brought his views to prevail. To 
him, and him alone, therefore, is really due whatever im- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 231 

portance attaches to the foundation of the American Journal 
of Mathematics which bears that delightful motto for which 
I am indebted to my friend, Professor Gildersleeve, — that 
is, I had the idea of it and he gave me the exact quotation, 
Upayfjidrcov e\ey^o<; ov jBXeiro^ev — the only journal in the 
world that has a Greek motto ! That is the clinching of 
things invisible, that is the leading idea of Mathematics. 

The other is a note from Professor Newcomb which cer- 
tainly confirms the impression that Professor Sylvester had 
retained of the keen interest President Gilman took in the 
foundation of the Journal of Mathematics: 

Washington, November 4, 1876. 
My dear Mr. President : 

It is my duty to inform you herewith of the possible faux 
pas which I made last night, but which I hope will actually 
turn out the opposite. Supposing that the subject of the 
Mathematical Journal had been discussed by your Executive 
Committee, I asked Judge Brown what he thought of it. 
Having thus let pussy out of the bag, I was taken aback by 
finding him disclaiming all knowledge of her. However, he 
took so kindly to the project, which I now tried to paint in 
the most glowing colors, that I trust no harm will be done. 

Yours very truly, 

Simon Newcomb. 

Besides establishing the more ambitious journals, the 
University early began to provide facilities for the publi- 
cation of minor papers and preliminary announcements re- 
lating to the work done by investigators in the various de- 
partments. It is not necessary to enumerate these, though 
some became of great importance, and the long series of the 
Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science 
cannot be passed over without notice. It should be men- 
tioned, too, that the Johns Hopkins University Circulars 
became a regular vehicle for the publication of briefer 



232 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

papers and summaries of work done. But the following 
letter from Professor Remsen to President Gilman, written 
toward the close of the first year (and before any of the 
large journals had been launched), may serve as a reminder 
of the dearth in our country at that time of all provision for 
the systematic encouragement of research by publication. 

May 7th, 1877. 

My dear Sir: 

I beg leave through you to make the following request of 
the Trustees of the University: 

During the past few months four of the gentlemen work- 
ing in the Chemical Laboratory have been engaged in ori- 
ginal investigations under my direction. The investigations 
are not yet completed, but certain definite results have been 
reached of such a character as to indicate clearly that we have 
opened fields which may profitably occupy our time for a 
year or more to come. 

At the present juncture it is desirable to publish prelimi- 
nary announcements describing what we have thus far done 
and what we intend to do. It is desirable mainly for two 
reasons; 1st, that we may be recognized as soon as possible 
as belonging to the working chemists of the country; 2nd, 
that the results of our labors may be insured to us, or, in 
other words, to establish our priority. 

In Germany, France and England there are journals in- 
tended for such preliminary publications, and articles sent 
to them are sure to appear promptly. In this country there 
is one journal (" The American Chemist ") which might be 
utilized in the same way, but it is published very irregularly, 
and articles sent to it rarely appear in less than six months. 

In view of these facts, I request that we may be author- 
ized to publish from time to time, under the title of " Notes 
from the Chemical Laboratory " such preliminary notices 
of our investigations as it may be desirable to get promptly 
in print. 

With our present working force of chemists the amount of 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 233 

matter which would be ready for publication during a year 
would hardly exceed fifty or sixty printed pages. 

The enclosed " proofs " will illustrate the character of 
these notes, and the form of publication, subject to revision. 

Yours very respectfully, 

Ira Remsen. 

It is odd to think of this modest request for the publication 
of some fifty or sixty pages of notes from the Chemical 
Laboratory, now that hardly one of our scores of univer- 
sities, little and big, in the center of New England culture or 
in the " wild West," is so poor or unpretending as to be 
without its output of scientific bulletins or transactions or 
proceedings to tell of the researches carried on within its 
walls. 

No appreciation of what went on in the foundation years 
of the Johns Hopkins University would be comprehensive, 
no explanation of its signal success in becoming at once a 
focus of true university spirit would be complete, which left 
out of account a certain element of atmosphere — the 
atmosphere not only of hard and enthusiastic work by each 
in his own domain, but something more general, more per- 
vasive. And to the production of this atmosphere a most 
valuable contribution was made by the institution of courses 
of public lectures given chiefly by eminent scholars from a 
distance. The beginnings of the University's work were 
necessarily circumscribed in many ways; and it was a most 
happy thought to add to what was being done in the regular 
course of things an element of such richness and color — as 
well as of solid intellectual quality — as these lectures pro- 
vided. Without the background of history, without the 
stimulus of comparison or rivalry with similar institutions, 
in an environment offering no sustenance to the peculiar and 
specialized activities being carried on by little groups of 
workers, it requires no great effort to imagine the danger 



234 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

that there might be something arid or anaemic about the life 
of the Johns Hopkins University in its beginnings. As a 
matter of fact quite the opposite of all this actually charac- 
terized those early years, and it would be difficult to say in 
just what measure this happy result was brought about by 
that added touch of breadth and distinction which was given 
by the presence of men like Lowell and Child and Whitney 
and Newcomb and Cooley and Walker, and by the refresh- 
ing perspectives of great fields of thought which they and 
other non-resident and resident lecturers of the first two 
years placed before this little body of university pioneers 
and the cultivated public of Baltimore. A table of the pub- 
lic lectures given in 1876-77 and 1877-78 appears in the 
third annual report of the President, and will give a better 
picture of the part these lectures played than could be given 
by general comment : 

Professor Subject Lect'ures 

1876-77 

Gildersleeve Greek Lyric Poetry 20 

Rabillon French Literature 19 

Newcomb History of Astronomy 20 

Child Chaucer 20 

Lowell Dante 20 

Whitney Comparative Philology 18 

Hilgard Geodetic Surveys 20 

Walker Money 20 

Cooley Torts 20 

Mallet Waste Chemical Products .... 20 



1877-78 

Remsen History of Chemistry 12 

Billings Medical Education 20 

Gildersleeve Homer's Odyssey 20 

Rabillon French Literature 20 

Morris History of Philosophy 20 

Child Comparative Ballads 20 

Child Shakspeare 10 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 235 

Cooley Constitutional Law 6 

James Psychology 10 

Allen History of Fourteenth Century . . 20 

Walker Finance 21 

Mallet History of Chemical Industry . . 20 

A letter from Professor Child written in December, 1875, 
shows how early the germ of this plan of bringing eminent 
men temporarily to Baltimore entered into Mr. Gilman's 
thoughts, and it is interesting too as showing his endeavor 
to secure Child as professor. It may also serve as a re- 
minder of the progress that has been made since those days 
in the attitude of universities toward such scholars as Child, 
a contrast which might be drawn with even greater force 
than in this Harvard instance by recalling the situation at 
Yale of Child's peer in scholarship, Professor Whitney: 

Cambridge, December 19, 1875. 
Dear President Gilman: 

It was not till two or three days ago that I could get 
speech with President Eliot. I found him unwilling to have 
me leave Cambridge and disposed to do all that he could to 
make my continuance here more agreeable. The obstacles 
to my leaving Cambridge are very numerous, and those 
which come from family duties are not to be overcome. As 
I told you, a large salary is a consideration that my circum- 
stances will not allow me to make light of. The liberal plan 
of your University presents attractions which are at least 
equal to the better salary. You see, therefore, that I do not 
find it easy to decline the honor which you offer me. If you 
will take off one half my years and the obligations to other 
people which I have incurred in them, I will accept your 
proposition with delight. 

I mentioned to President Eliot your suggestion that if I 
could not accept a full appointment as professor, I should 
come to Baltimore for the month of February. I told him 
that this was a proposal which I should like to accept. The 
difficulty in the way is that during one half of the time of 



236 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

my absence my classes — according to the present arrange- 
ments — would be unprovided for. An exchange with an- 
other professor is impracticable, because no two professors 
have the same students. The President did not wish how- 
ever that I should at once give up the thought of coming to 
you for a mouth: he could suggest at the time no expedient 
to provide for my classes. We thought some arrangement 
might perhaps be hit upon. You will perhaps, therefore, 
allow me to hold that part of your proposition under con- 
sideration for a time. I do not quite know what you could 
want me to do. Not very much can be effected in the way 
of instruction in four weeks. I do not regularly instruct by 
lectures here, though I should be willing to do this, if it were 
desired. After this year I am to have no more Themes 
(thanks to you) and shall give my time entirely to the Eng- 
lish Language and Literature. I should be glad to have you 
say, some time when you have the leisure, what you would 
wish to have me undertake. Besides this, it will be as much 
for my convenience as for yours to have the time when an 
answer must be given fixed. I should also wish to know 
what the J. H. U. would pay for the kind of services 
desired. 

I hope I have not put you to inconvenience by delaying 
my answer so long. A decision was far from being a simple 
matter. I have had your interest on my mind, I believe, as 
well as my own. Wishing you a much better man in my 
place, I am always 

Your faithful and obliged servant, 

F. J. Child. 

A passage in " The Launching of a University " gives 
some delightful glimpses of Lowell and Child: 

Mr. James Russell Lowell, then Professor Lowell, and 
Professor Child spent the month of February, 1877, with 
us, and during a part of the same period Professor Charles 
E. Norton was lecturing at the Peabody Institute. They 
were revered as three wise men of the East. Lowell made 
but little preparation for his lectures, which were devoted to 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 237 

Romance poetry, with Dante as the central theme — I mean 
that he made but little special preparation for each discourse. 
He had with him the accumulated notes of a long-continued 
professorship, and I think he told me that he had read Dante 
forty times over. His manner was so captivating that he 
would have delighted his auditors if he had simply stated 
the most commonplace reflections on mediaeval poetry; but 
his literary sagacity, his humour, his learning, and his cita- 
tions charmed all who heard him, more, perhaps, than 
greater elaboration and more logical treatment would have 
done. In private, he was delightful. I treasure a vivid pic- 
ture of his getting down on his knees so as to be of the same 
height as a little girl seven years old, and offering her his 
arm as he escorted her to the supper-table; and I know a 
lady who still counts as a valuable memento the offhand 
verses with which he acknowledged a bunch of roses received 
from her on his recovery from an attack of illness. 

At the commemoration exercises on Washington's Birth- 
day, Mr. Lowell read by request that part of his " Ode 
under the Old Elm " (Canto viii), in which a glowing trib- 
ute is paid to Virginia. In a letter to Miss Norton, the 
scene is thus described by the poet himself. After speaking 
of the address by Professor Gildersleeve on classical studies 
and that by Professor Sylvester on the study of mathe- 
matics, " both of them very good and just enough spicy with 
the personality of the speaker to be taking," he goes on to 
say: " Then I, by special request, read a part of my Cam- 
bridge Elm poem, and actually drew tears from the eyes of 
bitter Secessionists — comparable with those iron ones that 
rattled down Pluto's cheek. I did n't quite like to read the 
invocation to Virginia here — I was willing enough three 
or four hundred miles north — but I think it did good. 
Teackle Wallis (Charles will tell you who he is), a prisoner 
of Fort Warren, came up to thank me with dry eyes (which 
he and others assured me had been flooded), and Judge 
Brown with the testifying drops still on his lids." 

Lowell was a constant listener to Child, and he enjoyed 
the lectures as much as any of us. " You missed a great 
pleasure," he says to Professor Norton, " in not hearing 
him read the " Nonnes Prestes " tale. I certainly never 



238 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

heard anything better. He wound into the meaning of it 
(as Dr. Johnson says of Burke) like a serpent, or perhaps 
I should come nearer to it if I said that he injected the veins 
of the poem with his own sympathetic humour till it seemed 
to live again. I could see his hearers take the fun before 
it came, their faces lighting with the reflection of his. I 
never saw anything better done. I wish I could inspire 
myself with his example, but I continue dejected and lump- 
ish. . . . Child goes on winning all ears and hearts. I am 
rejoiced to have this chance of seeing so much of him, for 
though I loved him before, I did not know how lovable he 
was till this intimacy." There is another letter from " Bahl- 
timer " to Miss Norton, from which I make a longer cita- 
ton, chiefly for the sake of Child — partly for the sake of 
Baltimore hospitality. " Sylvester paid a charming com- 
pliment to Child, and so did Gildersleeve. The former said 
that Child had invented a new pleasure for them in his read- 
ing of Chaucer, and Gildersleeve that you almost saw the 
dimple of Chaucer's own smile as his reading felt out the 
humour of the verse. The house responded cordially. If 
I had much vanity I should be awfully cross, but I am happy 
to say that I have enjoyed dear Child's four weeks' triumph 
(of which he alone is unconscious), to the last laurel-leaf. 
He is such a delightful creature ! I never saw so much of 
him before, and should be glad I came here if it were for 
nothing but my nearer knowledge and enjoyment of him. 

" We are overwhelmed with kindness here. I feel very 
much as an elderly oyster might who was suddenly whisked 
away into a polka by an electric eel. How I shall ever do 
for a consistent hermit again, heaven only knows. I eat five 
meals a day, as on board a Cunarder on the mid-ocean, and 
on the whole bear it pretty well, especially now that there 
are only four lectures left." 

The public lectures, while playing a less prominent part, 
have continued to be an important feature at the University 
ever since, and lectures given by visiting professors before 
separate departments of the University have also formed 
a valuable adjunct to the work. Two permanent establish- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 239 

ments have been made in this line by special endowment, — 
the Turnbull lectureship of Poetry, which has brought to 
the University in successive years Stedman, Jebb, Brune- 
tiere, Woodberry and others; and the Schouler lectureship 
in History and Political Science, which was inaugurated last 
spring by a course of lectures on " Public Opinion and 
Popular Government " by the President-elect of Harvard 
University. 

The recognition by Mr. Gilman of the part that might 
be played in the building up of an intellectual atmosphere 
by public lectures such as these, and by the presence of the 
notable men who gave them, was not in the nature of a 
happy thought, an accidental lucky hit. It was an outcome 
of that breadth of view, and that alertness for the discovery 
of large possibilities, that were characteristic of him. In 
regard to individual men, as well as in regard to schemes of 
work, his eyes were open to what was outside the customary 
routine, and quick to seize upon anything of distinguished 
excellence. Many instances might be cited of his utilizing 
peculiar opportunities that lay off the beaten path. Thus 
the proximity of Professor Newcomb to the seat of the Uni- 
versity suggested the establishment of close advisory rela- 
tions with him, although it was impossible to make him part 
of the University Faculty; and at a later time the singular 
genius of Charles S. Peirce was made a source of remarkable 
intellectual stimulation in the University through the estab- 
lishment of a lectureship which he filled along lines quite 
peculiarly his own. In the only other instance which shall 
be cited, Mr. Gilman's sympathetic insight effected a ser- 
vice in which his interest was perhaps equally divided be- 
tween the question of promoting the University's work and 
that of helping to relieve the burdens of struggling genius 
and noble manhood. 

It was very early in his residence in Baltimore that Mr. 



240 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Gilman became interested in the work and the personality 
of Sidney Lanier. In an article in the South Atlantic Quar- 
terly for April, 1905, he tells of the beginnings of his interest 
in Lanier: 

As a Baltimorean who had just formed the acquaintance 
of Lanier (both of us being strangers at that time in a 
city which we came to love as a most hospitable and respon- 
sive home), I was much interested in his appointment. 1 It 
was then true, though Dr. Holmes had not yet said it, that 
Baltimore had produced three poems, each of them the best 
of its kind: " The Star Spangled Banner " of Key, " The 
Raven " of Poe, and " Maryland, my Maryland " by Ran- 
dall. Was it to produce a fourth poem as remarkable as 
these? Lanier's " Cantata " appeared in one of the daily 
journals, prematurely. I read it as one reads newspaper 
articles, with a rapid glance, and could make no sense of it. 
Rhyme without reason I would not say, but certainly words 
without sentences. I heard the comments of other bewil- 
dered critics. I read the piece again and again before the 
meaning began to dawn on me. Soon afterwards, Lanier's 
own explanation appeared and the Dawn became Daylight. 
The ode was not written " to be read." It was to be sung, 
— and sung not by a single voice, with a piano accompani- 
ment, but in the open air, by a chorus of many hundred voices 
and with the accompaniment of a majestic orchestra, to 
music especially written for it by a composer of great dis- 
tinction. The critical test would be its rendition. From this 
point of view the Cantata must be judged. 

I remember well the day of trial. The President of the 
United States, the Emperor of Brazil, the Governors of 
States, the judges of the highest courts, the chief military 
and naval heroes, were seated on the platform in the face 
of an immense assembly. There was no pictorial effect in 
the way they were grouped. They were a mass of living 
beings, a crowd of black-coated dignitaries, not arranged in 
any impressive order. No Cathedral of Canterbury, no 

1 To write a cantata for the opening of the Philadelphia Centennial 
Exhibition. 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 241 

Sanders Hall, no episcopal or academic gowns. The oratory 
was likewise ineffective. There were loud voices and vigor- 
ous gestures, but none of the eloquence which enchants a 
multitude. The devotional exercises awakened no senti- 
ment of reverence. At length came the Cantata. From the 
overture to the closing cadence it held the attention of the 
vast throng of listeners, and when it was concluded loud 
applause rung through the air. A noble conception had been 
nobly rendered. Words and music, voices and instruments, 
produced an impression as remarkable as the rendering of 
the Hallelujah Chorus in the nave of Westminster Abbey. 
Lanier had triumphed. It was an opportunity of a lifetime 
to test upon a grand scale his theory of verse. He came off 
victorious. 

This was in 1876, shortly before the opening of the Uni- 
versity. Some months later, in pursuance of a letter of in- 
quiry from Lanier, Mr. Gilman had an interview with the 
poet, in which plans for a chair of Music and Poetry at the 
University were discussed. " I was anxious," says Presi- 
dent Gilman, " to have him appointed to such a chair, but 
the trustees did not see their way to do so." Mr. Gilman's 
interest in Lanier, however, did not diminish, and two years 
later he was appointed lecturer in English Literature at the 
University. Mr. Gilman's letter of February 4, 1879, in- 
forming him of the appointment, seems to have been in the 
nature of a birthday surprise, and closes with the words: 
" I sincerely hope that we may have the benefit of your co- 
operation." How keen was his interest in Lanier's success 
in the proposed lectures may be seen from the following 
letter: 

Princeton, Mass., July 16, 1879. 
My dear Sir: 

I have received yours of the 13th, with enclosures, which 
I have read with yours of June 30th. You have a high ideal 
and I certainly hope that your success in striving after it 
may be all that we anticipate. I am not sure but " Litera- 

16 



242 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ture " will be a better term than " Poetry " for the lecture- 
ship or chair, — but this is quite secondary. I do not like 
to venture upon comments in regard to the details of a 
scheme which you have considered much more than I, and 
are much more competent to judge of. Even the sugges- 
tions which might arise in conversation, it is hardly wise to 
put on paper, — lest they should be made thereby more im- 
portant than they really are. But perhaps I can help you 
give a practical form to the scheme by some general com- 
ments upon the hearers whom we have thus far reached in 
our three years' work. 

1. There is a miscellaneous company, including some per- 
sons of very high cultivation; many of general liveliness of 
mind and good purpose; and a very few specialists, — who 
like to attend the Hopkins Hall lectures. These lectures 
attract attention to our work, cause it to be talked about 
among educated people; quicken many minds not able to 
quicken themselves; and help many of our own young men 
who are working in different departments of study to keep 
up an interest in literature, history, etc. These " Hopkins 
Hall lectures " ought to be carefully prepared, — but they 
should give general views, not minute criticisms, or facts, or 
very abstract philosophy. . . . 

2. We have a company of undergraduate students of the 
usual college age, — all of them more or less trained in the 
study of ancient or modern languages, or both. Among 
them, next year, we ought to be able to make a class, per- 
haps of ten, possibly of twenty, I wish it might be of thirty 
or forty, who would take up the study of Literature, — 
probably as part of a major or of a minor course in English, 
leading to the degree of B.A. . . . 

3. We may wake up a few persons (such as Royce was) 
among the Fellows or Graduates, who will take up Litera- 
ture in a truly earnest and philosophical spirit, — and do 
masterly work, but I do not suppose there will be many of 
these the first year. After it is known what you can give and 
how attractively you give it, — I think you will not be with- 
out a few earnest followers. 

Now in order to " realize " your aims, I think that next 
winter you might find it wise to give one good public course. 



V 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 243 

The very lectures of last winter may be fitly repeated. I 
should like to have that course come before Christmas. 
After the New Year vacation, I think you would be so well 
known among us that you would gather around you, chiefly 
among our undergraduates, a company of special workers. 
I doubt whether in such material as you are likely to find 
among us, there are many who will take up and do justice 
to such theses as you have sketched. . . . 

I think your scheme may be admirably worked in not 
only with our major and minor courses in English, but with 
all other literary courses, French and German, Latin and 
Greek. The teachers of these subjects pursue chiefly lan- 
guage courses. They study the grammar, the history, the 
use of Latin, Greek, French, German, — not exclusively but 
for linguistic and philological more than for literary lessons. 
Now we need among us someone like you, loving literature 
and poetry and treating it in such a way as to enlist and 
inspire many students. 

I think your aims and your preparation admirable. I 
can make no suggestions upon these points. I only desire 
that in the form of presentation, you may be ready to adapt 
yourself to such circumstances as will develop themselves; 
and that you will not expect or attempt too much the first 
year lest we all be disappointed. We suppose Mr. Cook 
to be a well trained philologist. I think when you come to 
be acquainted with him, and with our eclectic (and there- 
fore complex) courses of study, you will see just what is 
needed. I am very glad that you lend us your aid, and you 
may rely upon all the help I can give to make your work 
successful. Pray write again, and believe me 
Yours very truly, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

One other letter to Lanier, written the following year, 
may be quoted: 

November 15, 1880. 
My dear Mr. Lanier : 

On our return Saturday from the sad errand which took 
us out of town last week, I found upon my table the copy of 



244 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






the Boy's Arthur which you have been so kind as to send 
me. I have already read the preface, and looked through 
the entire volume, and I reached the conclusion that I know 
at least three boys, in three different cities, who must have 
the Arthur book for their Christmas present. You are 
doing a right good service by suggesting such old, sound 
stories to the readers of our younger generation, — and you 
seem to me yourself a valiant knight, fighting against ill 
health and other opponents, a fight for all that is noble and 
inspiring. It is a wonder to me perpetually that you can 
complete so many good undertakings, and I hope you will 
have a life as long as you wish for, to devise and execute 
fresh enterprises. 

Yours sincerely, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



The development of the work of the philosophical fac- 
ulty — the establishment in this country of the standards 
and ideals of scholarship and scientific research which are 
characteristic of the German universities — was quite suffi- 
cient to absorb the interest and to center the attention of 
those engaged in the activities of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, and of friends of learning throughout the country 
who were watching its progress. Liberally as the Univer- 
sity had been endowed — extraordinary liberality according 
to the standards of those days — it soon became evident, 
especially in view of the unfavorable course of events affect- 
ing the chief investment of the University's funds, that 
expansion in the direction of a medical school, though ex- 
pressly contemplated by the founder, was, for the present, 
out of the question. And more than this should be said. 
Although nobody who had given any thought to the subject 
could fail to see that medical education in America was on 
a plane far lower than we had every reason to expect and 
demand, and although everywhere in the higher institutions 
there was a steady striving for better things and a gradual 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 245 

progress upward, yet this progress was slow and nowhere 
did there seem to be in practical contemplation a bold, radi- 
cal, creative plan of attaining to a distinctly higher level. 
Perhaps nothing testifies more conclusively to Mr. Gilman's 
rare instinct for creative usefulness than the fact, of which 
there is abundant evidence, that from the very beginning of 
his work in Baltimore the establishment of a medical school 
which should be a signal addition to the country's educa- 
tional resources was continually in his mind. It is certainly 
a most remarkable circumstance that although seventeen 
years intervened between the opening of the Johns Hopkins 
University and the opening of its Medical School, and al- 
though in this interval every ambitious university in the 
country was stirred up by the example set at Baltimore and 
instituting work similar to that done there in the philosophi- 
cal faculty, it still remained for the. Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity to make in medical education that great step forward 
which so evidently needed to be made and which, when made 
in 1893, was recognized as coordinate in importance with 
that of 1876 in the school of letters and science. It was 
undoubtedly Mr. Gilman's hope and expectation at the out- 
set that the Medical School would be opened very much 
sooner; but when the time and the opportunity came, he 
availed himself of them with a success that must have sur- 
passed his own most sanguine expectations. From the very 
first the importance of the object was prominent in his 
thoughts. In his inaugural address, February 22, 1876, he 
outlined as follows his view of what the new university 
might do for the promotion of medical education: 

When we turn to the existing provisions for medical in- 
struction in this land and compare them with those of Euro- 
pean universities; when we see what inadequate endow- 
ments have been provided for our medical schools, and to 
what abuses the system of fees for tuition has led; when 



246 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

we see that in some of our very best colleges the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine can be obtained in half the time re- 
quired to win the degree of Bachelor of Arts; when we see 
the disposition of the laymen at home and the profession 
abroad to treat diplomas as blank paper, and the prevalence 
of the quackery vaunting its diplomas; when we read the 
reports of the medical faculty in their own professional 
journals; and when we see the difficulties that have been 
encountered in late attempts to reorganize the existing medi- 
cal schools, it is clear that something should be done. Then, 
turning to the other side of the picture, when we see what 
admirable teachers have given instruction among us in medi- 
cine and surgery; what noble hospitals have been founded; 
what marvellous discoveries in surgery have been made by 
our countrymen; what ingenious instruments they have con- 
trived; what humane and skilful appliances they have pro- 
vided on the battle-field; what admirable measures are in 
progress for the advancement of hygiene and the promo- 
tion of public health; what success has attended recent ef- 
forts to reform the system of medical instruction; — when 
we observe all this, we need not fear that the day is distant, 
we may rather rejoice that the morning has dawned, which 
will see endowments for medical science as munificent as 
those now provided for any branch of learning, and schools 
as good as those now provided in any other land. 

It will doubtless be long, after the opening of the univer- 
sity, before the opening of the hospital; and this interval 
may be spent in forming plans for the department of 
medicine. But in the meantime we have an excellent oppor- 
tunity to provide instruction antecedent to the professional 
study of medicine. At the present moment medical students 
avoid the ordinary colleges. A glance at the catalogue is 
enough to show that the usual classical or academic course is 
unattractive to such scholars. The reasons need not be given 
here. But who can doubt that a course may be maintained, 
like that already begun in the Sheffield School at New 
Haven, which shall train the eye, the hand and the brain for 
the later study of medicine? Such a course would include 
abundant practice in the laboratories of chemistry, zoology 
and physics; the study of the anatomy, physiology and pa- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 247 

thology of the lower forms of life; the investigation of the 
principles of physics and mechanics, and of climatic or me- 
teorological laws; the geographical distribution of disease; 
the remedial agencies of nature and art; and, besides these 
scientific studies, the student should acquire enough of 
French and German to follow with ease European science, 
and enough of Latin for his professional needs. In other 
words, in our scheme of a university, great prominence 
should be given to the studies which bear upon life — the 
group now called biological sciences. 

Such facilities as are now afforded under Huxley in Lon- 
don and Rolleston at Oxford and Foster at Cambridge, and 
in the best German universities, should here be introduced. 
They would serve us in the training of naturalists, but they 
would serve us still more in the training of physicians. By 
the time we are ready to open a school of medicine, we 
might hope to have a superior, if not a numerous, body of 
aspirants for one of the noblest callings to which the heart 
and head can be devoted. 

When the medical department is organized it should be 
independent of the income derived from student fees, so that 
there may not be the slightest temptation to bestow the 
diploma on an unworthy candidate; or rather let me say, so 
that the Johns Hopkins diploma will be worth its face in the 
currency in the world. 

How prominent a part the question of the improvement 
of medical education occupied in Mr. Gilman's mind is evi- 
denced in a great many ways. It was attested in concrete 
form from the very beginning of the University's work in 
the establishment among the undergraduate courses of a 
course explicitly preliminary to the study of medicine. And 
as early as 1878, when the University had been in operation 
only two years, President Gilman made a special report to 
the Trustees on the subject of medical education. Familiar 
as we are with the extraordinary absence of proper stand- 
ards in the common run of the almost innumerable medical 
schools of the country, it is almost startling to come across 



248 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

such a statement as the following, which Mr. Gilman makes 
in his report to the Trustees, December 2, 1878, applying 
as it does not only to the worst or the mediocre but also to 
the best of the medical schools of that time: 

So far as I am aware there is but one medical school in 
this country which requires any preliminary examination for 
entrance to its courses. This school requires a knowledge 
of easy Latin Prose, and elementary Natural Philosophy. 
Another school requires the same attainments to be exhib- 
ited before the candidates present themselves for examina- 
tion in their medical studies. It is possible that like exac- 
tions may be made elsewhere, but with these partial excep- 
tions I do not know of any medical school in the country 
which requires in the final or intermediate examinations any 
knowledge of French or German, or any other language, or 
any scientific training except that which is acquired in the 
professional school. 

The consequence is that the medical schools are receiving 
young men who could not enter the lowest class of a respect- 
able college, and young men who have had no preliminary 
training in scientific principles, and who have done no work 
in scientific laboratories, are admitted to courses which re- 
quire the most practised eyes, the most skilful hands, and the 
best disciplined brains. 

To remedy the discreditable condition not only directly 
involved in this state of things but inevitably implied by it, 
Mr. Gilman in this report lays down as preliminary necessi- 
ties, first, the adoption of a proper standard of admission 
to medical colleges, and secondly, the establishment of what 
had already been begun in Baltimore, a course of study ex- 
pressly preliminary to medicine. On this second head he 
says: 

Hitherto, the advocates of good fundamental education 
have advised young men to follow the ordinary college 
course and graduate as Bachelors of Arts before beginning 
medical studies. This was the natural advice when and 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 249 

where there was but one college curriculum, and even now, 
publicly and privately, many of the advocates of improved 
medical education insist upon it that the B.A. degree should 
be recommended as the best introduction to a medical course. 
But in our country, at the present time, the degree of B.A. 
is by itself no more of a certificate than the degree of M.D. 
To ascertain its value, we must go behind the diploma, and 
ask by whom and for what this honor was conferred. There 
are worthless academic institutions as well as medical 
schools, and the sooner all scholars indicate the sources 
from which their diplomas are derived, the sooner will good 
diplomas be restored to their right offices, and poor diplomas 
be rendered worthless. 

I am prepared to go even further, and to claim that the 
medical colleges should not only insist upon antecedent 
studies, but should insist upon it that these studies include 
a very large amount of attention to the natural sciences, and 
to the modern languages, and to psychology and ethics. 

It is not the B.A. diploma which the medical colleges 
should exact, for this in the very best of our colleges may 
not indicate any training in the observation of nature what- 
soever, and in fact commonly indicates the predominance 
of Greek, Latin and Mathematics, over all other studies. 
It is not the B.A. diploma which should be exacted, — but 
rather evidence that the aspirant for a medical education has 
already made a good beginning in the study of nature, with 
varied enough range of studies to cultivate all his faculties, 
and that he is familiar with the phenomena which Chemistry 
and Physics reveal, and their bearing upon Life, in the vege- 
table and animal kingdoms. Such opportunities are now 
abundant in Cambridge, New Haven, Ithaca, and many 
other places — though I know of only two institutions in 
this country, the Sheffield Scientific School and the Johns 
Hopkins University, which offer and recommend definite 
courses of study in Biology as the proper introduction to 
the work of the medical college. 

After describing and discussing in detail the course of 
instruction desirable as a preparation for the study of medi- 



250 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

cine, Mr. Gilman says a word as to the title which should 
indicate the completion of such a course : 

Some have thought it might be desirable to mark the ter- 
mination of this course by giving to successful students the 
degree of Bachelor of Medicine, — but the objection is 
strongly urged that the public may thus be misled. The 
casual observer may suppose that a medical training has been 
given in this course, whereas it is scientific and literary, not 
medical, — and may as such be commended to those who 
would become naturalists, as well as to physicians. This 
argument seems conclusive. Perhaps the degree of Bache- 
lor of Science will be thought appropriate. One gentleman 
has playfully suggested that if we were not fettered by tra- 
ditional initials, the degree of F.S.M., " fit to study medi- 
cine," would tell the tale exactly. 

It must have been with a peculiar satisfaction that Presi- 
dent Gilman in his annual report for 1894, written a few 
months after the Medical School was opened, was able to 
set down as one of its characteristic features the following: 

Those only are admitted to this medical school, as candi- 
dates for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, who have pur- 
sued a course of liberal education in some college of repute, 
or who give evidence by examination that they have made 
corresponding advancement in knowledge. No other insti- 
tution in the land has placed so high a standard for the re- 
ception of students in medicine as this. But for admission 
to our medical school, it is not enough to have had what is 
commonly called a liberal education; every student entering 
himself as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Medi- 
cine must give evidence in advance that he has acquired a 
reading knowledge of French and German, and that he has 
pursued the study of physics, chemistry, and biology, each 
through a course of one year's instruction which included 
laboratory work. 

That the course was to extend through four years as 
against the prevailing two-year or three-year system, marked 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 251 

in itself a sharp advance; to require further a college degree 
or its equivalent as a necessary condition for entrance was 
to put on the screw pretty tight; and it certainly evidenced 
a very strong conviction, and the courage of it, to add to 
these things the unconditional demand that the collegiate 
course shall have included an adequate preparation in the 
physical sciences and the two leading modern languages. 

Mr. Gilman left among his papers a summary account of 
the origins of the Medical School and of the history of its 
organization, which seems worth quoting in full: 

Nothing could be done toward the organization of the 
Medical School until the Hospital approached completion 
and the University was ready to make the appointment of 
professors in the medical faculty. In the Administration 
Building of the Hospital, a certain number of rooms were 
provided to be occupied, it was then thought, by the more 
advanced students, perhaps by graduates of the Johns Hop- 
kins Medical School. On the other side, arrangements were 
made in the University for the promotion of such studies 
as underlie the study of Medicine, that is to say, in Physics, 
Chemistry and Biology, together with French and German 
and other studies pertaining to a liberal education. To pro- 
mote these ends special stress was laid upon the subject of 
Biology, which, under the influence of Huxley, was then the 
dominant word in Natural History. A former pupil of his, 
Dr. H. Newell Martin, was invited to come and take charge 
of the Biological Laboratory, the first institution of its kind 
established in the country. Huxley said of this former 
pupil, when consulted by me as to his possible invitation to 
Baltimore, " You could not possibly have a better man." 
Dr. Martin entered upon the work in 1876 with enthusiasm, 
intelligence and vigor. He had been well prepared in Cam- 
bridge and in London to devise and maintain, under the 
new conditions of natural science, a laboratory for the study 
of living things, and, at an early day, Professor William K. 
Brooks was associated with him in the new departure, one 
giving chief attention to Physiology and the other to Mor- 
phology. These two men made a very strong combination 



252 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

and their instructions attracted a great many students, not 
a few of whom have risen to distinguished positions. With- 
out disparaging others, I venture to name Professor Wil- 
liam H. Howell of the Johns Flopkins University, Professor 
E. B. Wilson of Columbia University, Professor H. H. 
Donaldson, once of Chicago and now of the Wistar Insti- 
tute in Philadelphia, Professor Morgan of Columbia Uni- 
versity, Professor S. F. Clark of Williams College, Massa- 
chusetts, Professor William T. Sedgwick of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology and Professor Mitsukuri of 
the University of Tokyo. 

It was noteworthy that very few persons selected this 
course, most wisely arranged as preparatory to future medi- 
cal studies. It had been so customary throughout the coun- 
try to admit young men to medical schools without previous 
examination, or with very slight exactions in the rudiments 
of an English education, that scientific training antecedent 
to medical studies was almost thought to be preposterous. 
Certain it is that very few persons followed this course with 
reference to the study of Medicine, although, as already in- 
timated, many were engaged in the study of natural science 
and acquired distinction in their future pursuits. 

It was a great disappointment to the University authori- 
ties that the building of the Hospital was so long delayed. 
When it was finally completed, circumstances too familiar to 
need repetition in this place had deprived the University of 
a large part of its income, and the time was not ripe for the 
beginning of the Medical School on which so many hopes 
and prophecies had been concentrated. 

Light did not dawn until Miss Mary E. Garrett came to 
the relief of the situation and with other ladies formed a 
committee asking for contributions to the establishment of 
a Medical School provided that women should be admitted 
to its privileges. This subscription amounted to somewhat 
less than $100,000, and when it was apparent that not less 
than $500,000 would be requisite, she generously added a 
sum sufficient to make up this amount with certain funds 
which the Trustees controlled. With this half million in 
hand it was decided to open the School, which was done in 
the fall of 1893. 

Meanwhile, the President of the University had brought 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 253 

together at frequent intervals the members of the staff most 
interested in the study of medicine, and the records of that 
body show that a great deal of attention was given to the 
subject by Professors Remsen, Martin and Welch, with 
whom for a long time Dr. Billings was associated. The 
original appointment of a professor in the Medical School 
was that of Dr. Welch, who was called to the chair of Pa- 
thology in 1884 and proceeded at once to organize labora- 
tory work in that department of science. I have given the 
story of his appointment in these words : 1 



"As the construction of the Johns Hopkins Hospital approaches com- 
pletion, the university is devoting much thought to the organization of its 
Faculty of Medicine. A study of the problem, consultation with eminent 
physicians at home and abroad, and an examination of other institutions, 
led long ago to the conclusion that a Professorship of Pathology should be 
among the earliest to be instituted. Chemistry and Biology, including 
morphology, embryology, and physiology, were already taught in the phi- 
losophical faculty. Pathology and Therapeutics were the scientific chairs 
which seemed to be next called for, as their instruction would be likely to 
require experimental laboratories, distinct from the Hospital and from the 
other university working rooms. After much inquiry, at home and abroad, 
the Trustees made choice of Dr. William H. Welch, of New York, to be 
Professor of Pathology. He is a graduate of Yale College, and of the Col- 
lege of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, who pursued his studies abroad, 
and afterwards became Professor in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College 
of New York. In forming their opinion of his qualifications for this re- 
sponsible post, the Trustees had the benefit of many counsellors in the 
medical profession, among whom it may be proper to name Professor Cohn- 
heim of Leipsic, with whom Dr. Welch had been a student. Dr. Welch will 
spend a considerable portion, if not all, of the next year, in Europe, where 
he will make such purchases and pursue such inquiries as will enable him 
to be most useful when he returns to Baltimore. As an Associate in this 
department, Dr. Welch recommended, and the Trustees concurred in, the 
appointment of Dr. William T. Councilman, of Baltimore, who has been 
for several years connected with our biological laboratory, as a student, an 
investigator, and a lecturer." 

When the time drew near for the opening of the Hospital, 
the authorities of the two institutions united in the appoint- 
ment of Dr. Osier to be chief physician in the Hospital, with 
the title of Professor of Medicine in the University; Dr. 

1 Ninth Annual Report of the President (1884), pp. 10, II. 



254 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Halsted to be chief surgeon with the title of Professor of 
Surgery in the University; Dr. Kelly to the position of 
Gynecologist with a corresponding title in the University. 

This group of four professors — Welch, Osier, Halsted 
and Kelly — who initiated the work of the Johns Hopkins 
Medical School, and with it an important chapter in the 
history of American medicine, is commemorated in the strik- 
ing painting made by Sargent at the instance of Miss Garrett 
and presented by her to the University. 

At the memorial meeting of Johns Hopkins Alumni in 
McCoy Hall on November 20, 1908, Professor Howell, 
Dean of the Medical Faculty, thus characterized the nature 
of Mr. Gilman's contribution to the advancement of medical 
education: 

With the prevision characteristic of a great leader, he 
seems to have selected medical education as one of the great 
opportunities which the new university might utilize to do 
a needed service to the country at large. For reasons over 
which he certainly had no control the realization of his 
plans was deferred for some seventeen years. It was not 
until 1893 that the medical school, as we now know it, was 
founded. It was and is a graduate school in the sense that 
it accepts as students only those who are college graduates. 
At the time of its foundation its requirements for entrance 
seemed almost absurdly high. It was supposed that only 
a few students each year would be willing to meet these re- 
quirements, considering that in the other leading schools the 
conditions for entrance were so much less difficult; and the 
idea that our standards would ever be adopted generally by 
other schools was scarcely reckoned among the probabili- 
ties. Yet, to-day, this school has 300 students upon its rolls, 
and for many years past there has been a steady approxi- 
mation on the part of other good medical schools toward 
the standards established here. Many agencies have un- 
doubtedly contributed to the great improvement in medical 
education which has taken place in this country during the 
last generation — volunteer organizations among high- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 255 

minded physicians, the effective action of our State Boards, 
etc., — but I believe it will be admitted that the actual 
example held before the eyes of the medical public, in the 
successful experiment carried out here under Mr. Gilman's 
direction, has been the most potent influence of all in 
strengthening the weak faith of those who doubted the 
feasibility of such a reform. 

Mr. Gilman's devotion to the affairs of the medical school 
in its early history was unfailing. He gave to it on the ad- 
ministrative side an ideal organization which has been the 
envy of other schools, and which will eventually, I believe, 
be generally adopted. The central feature of this organi- 
zation is that it places all power in the hands of a small but 
representative body, composed of the heads of departments, 
the president, and the superintendent of the hospital. Over 
the deliberations of this body he presided constantly during 
his incumbency, and it is needless, for those who knew him, 
to add that he was a most admirable presiding officer. 
Courteous, considerate, and informal, he invited a free ex- 
pression of opinion from all, but he knew well the art of 
controlling gently but firmly all tendencies to useless and 
diffuse discussion. The routine business was dispatched 
with promptness, while matters of importance from the 
standpoint of policy or precedent were treated with care and 
circumspection. A more harmonious and effective board it 
would be hard to imagine, and, indeed, how could it have 
been otherwise with a man like Gilman as presiding officer 
and a man like Welch as dean and secretary? Our founda- 
tions were well laid, and I am sure that the great success 
of the school, acknowledged everywhere, was a source of 
the deepest gratification to Mr. Gilman. It may be fairly 
claimed that it constituted his second great contribution to 
the educational development of this country. I hope that 
the future historian of medical education in the United 
States will not make the mistake of supposing, because Mr. 
Gilman was not a member of the medical profession, that 
therefore his connection with this medical school was in any 
sense perfunctory. On the contrary, it was real, it was vital, 
and it was continuously maintained. And through it all 
those who were associated with him must have been greatly 



256 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

impressed by the fact that in this, as in the other great enter- 
prises of which he formed a part, there was no thought of 
self. He was working for a great purpose, the nobility and 
importance of which were constantly present to his own 
mind and were by him transmitted to his associates and 
colleagues. 

At the general University meeting held in honor of Mr. 
Gilman, November 8, 1908, Professor Welch said in his 
address : 

Early in the history of the University Mr. Gilman con- 
stituted the nucleus of a medical faculty by bringing together 
for deliberation upon certain questions relating to the con- 
templated medical school Professor, now President, Rem- 
sen, Professor Martin, and Dr. Billings, and in 1884 I was 
summoned to join in these deliberations. It was realized 
from the start that there was an opportunity for the Univer- 
sity to achieve for higher medical education a work quite 
comparable in character to that which it was accomplishing 
for university education in general. It was this ideal which 
animated Mr. Gilman in all his efforts in behalf of the 
medical school. The attainment of this ideal of a medical 
school upon a true university basis, under the administration 
and largely through the efforts of Mr. Gilman, is of historic 
importance, and will be remembered as one of his greatest 
achievements in the cause of higher education. 

When, by the generous provision of a special endowment, 
it was possible to open the medical school in 1893, Mr. Gil- 
man brought to us the same qualities of leadership which 
had served the University so well since its foundation, the 
same wisdom in the selection of the staff, the same sagacity 
in counsel, the same power of organization, the same inspir- 
ing optimism, the same high ideals of attainment. He es- 
tablished with the heads of the various departments those 
close personal and sympathetic relations which were always 
an encouragement and stimulus to the best work. He re- 
joiced exceedingly in any good work or any distinction of 
any member of the staff, and half the pleasure of any such 
success was to share it with our president. 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 257 

That such testimony to the importance of the result 
achieved by the establishment of the Johns Hopkins Medical 
School is not to be ascribed to the partiality of men who were 
participants in the work it is hardly necessary to maintain, 
for the fact is universally acknowledged; but were there 
any need, one might refer with no little satisfaction to the 
tribute paid to this achievement by President Eliot when, in 
his address at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Johns Hop- 
kins, he referred to " the prodigious advancement of medical 
teaching which has resulted from the labors of the Johns 
Hopkins faculty of medicine," an achievement which he 
declared must " be counted as one of superb beneficence." 



Early in 1889 a new and unexpected responsibility was 
placed on Mr. Gilman's shoulders. While the Johns Hop- 
kins Hospital was required by the terms of the founder's 
will to form part of the resources of the Medical School of 
the University, it was an entirely independent institution, 
with a distinct Board of Trustees. Its opening was deferred 
for many years after the death of Johns Hopkins and after 
the opening of the University, owing to the great expense 
necessarily involved in the construction of the buildings, 
which, by the terms of the will, had to be provided out of 
the revenue, the capital remaining unimpaired. The plans 
of the Trustees of the Hospital contemplated an institution 
so extensive, and so perfect in its appointments, that the 
time intervening under these conditions between the an- 
nouncement of the bequest and the actual opening of the 
Hospital naturally seemed very long to all who were nearly 
concerned, and still longer to the outside public. When the 
time approached for a possible opening of the Hospital, the 
feeling therefore prevailed that there should be no delay 
beyond what was absolutely necessitated by the building 

17 



2 5 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

operations. It turned out, therefore, that, in spite of the 
long period of preparation, the task of setting the adminis- 
trative and professional machinery of the Hospital into 
motion seems to have confronted the Trustees almost as 
though it were a sudden call, and appalled them by its com- 
plexity. Mr. Francis T. King, the President of the Board 
of Trustees, who had labored with great devotion and abil- 
ity in the maturing of plans and the supervision of these 
many years of preliminary work, found at the opening of 
the year 1889 that between that time and the beginning of 
May — the date that had been publicly set for the opening 
of the Hospital — a gap had to be filled in some way which 
had not yet been definitely thought out. A many-sided or- 
ganization had to be constructed, its parts so coordinated 
that there would be harmony and cooperation throughout, 
and the whole set in motion without any of those jars and 
blunders that belong to a tentative or experimental stage. 
In this emergency Mr. King very wisely, but greatly to the 
surprise of Mr. Gilman, turned to the man whose organiz- 
ing ability in another field, and whose unflagging energy 
and zeal, gave assurance that, if he put his shoulder to the 
wheel, the trouble would be removed. The story of Mr. 
King's proposition may best be told in the following letter 
written by Mr. Gilman at the time: 

Baltimore, Jan. 22, 1889. 
My dear Sisters : 

This is a very busy world in which I live, & something 
unexpected often happens. The latest novelty is this, that 
in all probability I shall be asked to become Director of the 
J. H. Hospital, — without detriment to or diversion from 
my duties to the J. H. University. Affairs have been for 
some months at a standstill for want of an organising head; 
and for lack of a better, I am likely to be brought into the 
service. You will readily believe that I am particularly 
gratified by this token of the confidence of those who have 




DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

At the Age of Fifty-nine 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 259 

seen me at work these twelve years past. The position at 
the Hospital is one of great responsibility. It involves set- 
ting in motion the wheels of a very complex machine. It 
will require wisdom, caution, enterprise, decision, prolonged 
attention to a multitude of details. But the Trustees are 
most co-operative, the building is superb, the plans thus far 
formed are excellent, and the opportunity is therefore most 
inviting. I do not expect to receive any financial recompense, 
in addition to my present salary, — but a part of that will 
come from the Hospital, — and thus the Univ. chest will 
be relieved. Moreover, in the view of our future medical 
school, it is most desirable that Univ. and Hospital should 
act unitedly, and I hope that this new arrangement will 
promote the double interests. You would be surprised I 
think to see with what readiness and resolution I enter upon 
a year of difficulties and perplexities, in a new domain; but 
if I can succeed in wisely administering the first year of the 
Hospital, perhaps it will be pleasant to remember that I 
did. What is life for? 

I only meant to state the fact, — but as I have been led 
to state the motives, you may send this to the New Yorkers, 
if you like — 

Your loving D. C. G. 

Dear Sisters — Daniel has gone off to a stag dinner, leav- 
ing me to close this note for him. Just before he got off, 
a note came from Mr. Francis King saying that at a meeting 
of the Hospital board a resolution appointing him Direc- 
tor had passed by a unanimous vote. I should think so! 
Aren't they lucky to get such intelligence and enthusiasm 
by just asking! 

The postscript is of course by Mrs. Gilman; and it will 
not be out of place in connection with it to set down here 
a few lines which she has recently written concerning this 
episode in Mr. Gilman's life: 

Mr. Gilman agreed to accept the office of Director on 
the condition that he should have full authority and be 



2 6o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

accountable only to the Board. For five or six months he 
had an office at the University and an office at the Hospital, 
and spent half a day at each place. The University was in 
deep water financially at this time, and Mr. Gilman stipu- 
lated that during his time of service at the Hospital, the 
Hospital should pay half his salary in order to relieve the 
University. He worked with the greatest enthusiasm and 
delight, held many consultations and made several journeys. 
One of these was to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York 
to study its system of housekeeping. He made all the ap- 
pointments for the heads of departments, and on the ap- 
pointed day the Hospital was opened in complete working 
order. 

By the time the work was accomplished Mr. Gilman was 
on the point of breaking down; he suffered from neuralgia 
and sleeplessness for the only time in his life and the first 
gray hairs appeared. He was given a year's leave of ab- 
sence and in the autumn of 1889 went abroad for a year, 
to the Orient, returning in July, 1890. 

The address of Dr. Hurd, Superintendent of the Hos- 
pital, at the memorial meeting in the University, was not 
only a heartfelt tribute to Mr. Gilman, but gives such a vivid 
picture of the nature and spirit of his work at the Hospital 
that it is well worth reproducing in full: 

I desire to speak briefly in behalf of the Board of Trus- 
tees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in regard to President 
Gilman's connection with that institution. Although the 
connection seemed fortuitous and almost accidental, it was 
fraught with benefits to the Hospital and prepared the way 
for intimate relations with the Medical School when it was 
later established. When in the winter of 1888-9 the Hos- 
pital, after twelve years of preparation, was approaching 
completion, there was on the part of the Trustees much un- 
certainty as to the best method of organizing the work and 
putting the institution into active operation. The President 
of the Board of Trustees, the late Francis T. King, who had 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 261 

been selected by Johns Hopkins to supervise the erection 
of the Hospital, and who had been wisely and sagaciously 
interested in the project, found himself unequal to the task 
of opening it for patients by reason of ill-health and advanc- 
ing years. It was felt by all that the undertaking was of 
no ordinary proportions and called for the assistance of a 
skilled and wise organizer. One night as Mr. King lay 
sleepless and perplexed over the question of a proper person 
to undertake the work, the conviction suddenly came to him 
that President Gilman must do it. Later in my acquaint- 
ance, Mr. King often spoke of the relief which he felt when, 
shortly after, at his suggestion, the Trustees in January, 
1889, formally appointed Mr. Gilman Director of the Hos- 
pital, and committed to him the task of providing the Hos- 
pital with " a system," as had been expressed in the report 
of one of the committees — "a system which should serve 
as a guide to other institutions." He entered upon his new 
duties immediately with his usual ardor and energy. He 
familiarized himself with the literature of the subject and 
corresponded with experts both at home and abroad. He 
visited hospitals and large hotels in other cities to see their 
methods and details of management, and studied their 
kitchens, laundries, and linen-rooms. He inspected even 
such minor matters as table linen and napkins. Out of all 
this personal work he evolved a system of organization 
which has served excellently well ever since. I saw a very 
suggestive diagram a few days ago in which he portrayed 
visually, so that every one might clearly understand, the rela- 
tions of trustees, chief executive officer, heads of depart- 
ments, and employees. He assisted in the selection of medi- 
cal officers; he saw personally and selected and recom- 
mended for appointment all subordinate officers and defined 
their duties and responsibilities; he familiarized himself 
with the proper spheres of the housekeeper, the purveyor 
and the superintendent of nurses, and " set their bounds," 
and thus secured harmony and co-operation. He thus spent 
several very active months until the whole machinery of the 
establishment was put in motion upon the opening day in 
May, 1889 — and a well-ordered and inspiring day it was! 
He remained thereafter in daily attendance for many weeks 



262 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

and gave close attention to every detail of administration. 
I have in my possession several notices of routine appoint- 
ments written for the bulletin board in his own clear and 
legible hand. He came often to the Hospital before break- 
fast, and on occasion spent a night there, and this, too, when 
burdened with University duties. To him we owe a system 
of internal administration with many novel features, which, 
as has been mentioned in the minute just read, have con- 
tinued unchanged until now. I need not repeat what has 
been already so clearly stated. 

His kindness of heart and keen sympathy with the poor 
and friendless led him to modify many stringent regulations 
then generally in force in other hospitals as to Sunday vis- 
iting. Feeling that the laboring man could ill afford to lose 
time from his labor during the week day to visit a member 
of his family sick in the hospital, he arranged from the first 
for a visiting hour on Sunday. Likewise, impressed with his 
observation that Sunday was a long and lonely day for 
people far from home, he arranged that the mail should 
always be sent after on that day, that the sick might be 
cheered by news from home. 

He was interested in employees of every grade and left 
an impress of kindness, consideration, and courtesy upon all 
branches of Hospital service. He selected very wisely the 
first principal of the Training School for Nurses and the 
first head nurses. He was ever after much interested in the 
Training School and often visited it, and on several occa- 
sions made addresses to the pupil nurses. To his sugges- 
tion the Johns Hopkins Hospital owes the possession of the 
reproduction of Thorwaldsen's statue of Christ, the gift of 
Mr. Spence, of Baltimore, which adorns our rotunda and 
suggests rest and healing to sick and suffering. He sug- 
gested a system of publications on the part of the Hospital 
and watched the successive issues of the Bulletin and Re- 
ports with kindly critical interest. He kept himself con- 
stantly in touch with the work of the institution, and, if in 
hours of discouragement I sought his advice, he was ever 
hopeful and optimistic. " Look at the results," he would 
say, " they are grand." 

He remained on terms of intimate friendship with all of 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 263 

his former associates at the Hospital, and his influence was 
always given to educational and administrative betterment. 
He was never a carping critic, but rather a devoted, inter- 
ested friend. When his brief connection with the Hospital 
was at an end, he left behind him traditions of system and 
order, of a kindly spirit and true courtesy in his relations 
with officers, nurses, patients, and employees, of an apprecia- 
tion of honest, faithful work, and of high faith in the future 
usefulness of the institution. He was gifted with imagina- 
tion to conceive the possibilities of its future and a practical 
sense which had enabled him to realize his dreams. Above 
all he left with the Hospital an abiding spirit of enthusiasm 
for scientific study, of loyalty to the higher aims of medicine, 
and of cordial co-operation in every department of service. 
He was the steadfast friend and trusted adviser of each 
and all; and we loved and honored him. No better illus- 
tration could be given of his enduring personality, versa- 
tility, and practical judgment than his successful work at the 
Johns Hopkins Hospital. It will live for many years. 

In connection with the opening of the Hospital an inci- 
dent occurred that led to the writing of a document by Mr. 
Gilman which has never seen the light and which exhibits a 
quality of energy, decision, and even combativeness not usu- 
ally manifest in his writings. His possession of this quality, 
however, as a latent resource, to be used on the rare occa- 
sions when he felt it to be imperatively necessary, might 
easily be inferred by those associated with him. A proposal 
had been made that the Hospital should begin the work of 
medical instruction, and at a meeting of the Hospital Board 
some action had been taken looking to the carrying out of 
this proposal. This had doubtless been done without any 
feeling on the part of the Board that it entailed any remote 
or permanent consequences; but in the eyes of Mr. Gilman 
it involved a grave peril for the entire future of the great 
scheme of medical education which he had had in mind from 
the beginning. It was natural enough that the significance 



264 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

of a tentative beginning of medical instruction under the 
auspices of the Hospital, as bearing on the future of the 
Medical School, did not present itself to the eyes of any one 
else as it did to those of a man to whom both the ideals of 
the scheme and the means by which it was to be carried out 
had been the subject of prolonged and accurate thought for 
years ; and the openness of mind of the Trustees of the Hos- 
pital seems sufficiently attested by the fact that, after Mr. 
Gilman's warning and protest, nothing further was heard 
of the project. The document to which reference has been 
made was in the shape of a memorandum designed for the 
instruction of the Trustees of the Hospital, the greater part 
of which is reproduced below. It is almost a pity to leave 
out the omitted portions, precisely because they show a 
certain acerbity of which few specimens exist from Mr. Gil- 
man's pen; but, as they related to matters that can hardly 
have been the result of anything but a temporary misunder- 
standing, it does not seem best to preserve them: 

The action of the Trustees of the Johns Hopkins Hos- 
pital on Tuesday last has a most important bearing upon the 
work of the Johns Hopkins University and its proposed 
plans. As my arrangements are already made for a pro- 
longed absence from home, I take the liberty of leaving with 
you this note, in order that my attitude and opinions as 
President of the University may be distinctly understood, 
and if need be may be communicated to the public, among 
whom there are many persons deeply interested in our deci- 
sions; professors, students, parents, benefactors, trustees 
of other institutions, the professors of medicine and surgery, 
and the promoters of superior education in this and distant 
lands. I am confident that the Trustees of the Hospital will 
see reason to reconsider their action when all the facts are 
laid before them. 

Johns Hopkins, in his mandatory letter, said: " Bear con- 
stantly in mind that it is my wish and purpose that the Hos- 
pital shall ultimately form a part of the Medical School of 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 265 

that University for which I have made ample provision by 
my Will." 

Clearer language could hardly be employed to show that 
he expected the Medical School to belong to the Univer- 
sity, and that the Hospital when completed was to afford the 
requisite facilities for observing the treatment of injuries 
and disease. Influenced by these instructions, the Hospital 
authorities have built a structure far more costly than was 
needed as a Home for the sick — because it was to be the 
seat of medical education; and likewise when I was called 
into the service of the University it was with the under- 
standing that medical instruction was to be initiated at an 
early day. The expectation was then held out, and has 
constantly been renewed, that the University was to organ- 
ize (as soon as the Hospital was ready for observation) an 
advanced course of medical instruction. 

Accordingly for fifteen years the Trustees of the Johns 
Hopkins University have been engaged in work preparatory 
to the formation of a Medical School. The nucleus of a 
faculty of medicine was constituted in 1883, by a vote of the 
University Trustees; and a joint Standing Committee has 
been constituted by the Trustees of the Hospital and the 
Trustees of the University to promote the co-operation of 
the two foundations, and has held repeated meetings. The 
Hospital authorities on their part have lately assumed with 
great liberality a large amount of expenditure hitherto borne 
by the University, pertaining to pathology, and you, in the 
name of the Trustees, asked my co-operation in organizing 
the Hospital. This service I was glad to render without 
any personal compensation, largely for the purpose of bring- 
ing the two institutions into close accord, and of showing to 
the public that they were to be, as the founder directed, in 
the most co-operative relations. On the other hand the 
University has maintained for 14 years costly laboratories 
and Chairs of instruction in sciences related to medicine. 
The harmonious relations between the two foundations 
have never been interrupted, and they never should be. 

The experience of this entire country has shown that a 
faculty or school of medicine should not be merely in the 
hands of the Professors, but should be in close and intimate 



266 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

relations with the other chairs or faculties of a University. 
On this point no one has spoken more clearly than the Pa- 
thologist of the Hospital, Dr. Welch. 

It is difficult to foretell what complications will arise un- 
less the action of the Hospital is re-considered. The public, 
which for fifteen years has looked forward to the beginning 
of our medical course as to an epoch in medical education, 
will unquestionably hold us all to a strict accountability in 
this matter. 

Permit me to state in a sentence the principle which should 
govern both boards of Trustees. All that belongs to medical 
instruction should be under the control of the University; 
all that belongs to the care of the sick and suffering, and all 
that concerns admission to clinical opportunities, or to resi- 
dence within the walls of the Hospital, belongs to the Hos- 
pital. A joint Committee can easily adjust all questionable 
points if the fundamental principle is agreed upon. 

If I understand the situation, it is this: The Hospital has 
incurred large expense in the construction of its buildings, 
and in the engagement of its distinguished physicians and 
surgeons, and in the establishment of its laboratories, in 
order that medical instruction of an advanced character 
may here be given. That instruction can now be given to 
graduate students. It would be a misfortune if this pur- 
pose were not carried out quickly, wisely and harmoniously. 
The only question is, how can this best be done; by the Uni- 
versity Board of Trustees, organized for the purpose of 
promoting advanced education, and now engaged in the 
direction of a learned and able body of men, or by the Hos- 
pital Trustees, organized for the treatment of the sick and 
suffering. 

May I conclude by quoting again the words which are 
so familiar to you, if they did not indeed proceed from your 
suggestion, words which were accepted by the founder of 
both trusts. 

" Bear constantly in mind that it is my wish and purpose 
that the Hospital shall ultimately form a part of the medi- 
cal school of that University for which I have made ample 
provisions by my will." The recent action of the Hospital 
Trustees begins with a cordial expression of desire to co- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 267 

operate with the Johns Hopkins University in promoting 
medical education. Do not let us begin by divergence or 
by confusing the functions of the two corporations. 



During the long period covering his presidency of Johns 
Hopkins University and his connection with the Carnegie 
Institution a multitude of other activities engaged Mr. Gil- 
man's interest and enlisted his active labors. His work in 
the domain of organized charity and in the carrying on of 
such systematic philanthropies as those of the Slater Board 
and of the Peabody Education Board forms what ought to 
be looked upon as a distinct chapter of his life, running on 
alongside the main body. His share in the shaping of the 
work of these boards and especially of the Slater Board was 
of great importance, but cannot be explicitly traced; his 
activities in the general field of organized charity will be 
spoken of at some length further on. Of the activities of 
a more miscellaneous character hardly more than a mention 
can be made. Of one of these things, not disconnected with 
the University work itself but in reality a distinct perform- 
ance — namely, the final organization of the Johns Hop- 
kins Hospital — an account has already been given; a rapid 
survey of the others must suffice. In 1879 he was made 
President of the American Social Science Association; in 
1882 he became one of the original Trustees of the John 
F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen, in the for- 
mation of whose plans he took a leading part, of which in 
1893 he became President (succeeding ex-President Ruther- 
ford B. Hayes), an office that he continued to hold until 
his death; in 1893 he was elected a Trustee of the Pea- 
body Education Fund, of which he afterwards became Vice- 
President; he was President of the American Oriental So- 
ciety from 1893 until 1906, and President of the National 



268 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Civil Service League from 1901 to 1907; in 1896 he be- 
came a Vice-President of the American Bible Society and in 
1903 its President; and in 1907 he was named as one of 
the Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation upon its estab- 
lishment. A special call of national importance came to him 
in 1896, when, at the crisis of the Venezuelan difficulty, he 
was asked by President Cleveland to be a member of the 
commission appointed " to investigate and report upon the 
true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and 
British Guiana." His readiness not only to help every be- 
neficent movement in Baltimore, but to seize upon occasions 
for initiating such movements, was constant throughout his 
residence there. To this kind of activity he needed no other 
instigation than that furnished by his lifelong habit and in- 
stinct of usefulness, but undoubtedly an additional motive 
was furnished by his desire to associate the Johns Hopkins 
University in the minds of the people of Baltimore with the 
idea of local usefulness and public spirit. In 1881, at a 
meeting of the American Social Science Association in Al- 
bany, he heard an account of the work of the London Char- 
ity Organization Society; and on his return to Baltimore he 
called a few gentlemen to a meeting at his office, the result 
of which was the formation of the Charity Organization 
Society of Baltimore, one of the earliest in America and one 
that has exercised an exceptionally important influence on 
the development of organized charity throughout the coun- 
try; his influence on the work of this association was highly 
important, and he was its President from 1891 until 1901. 
When, as the result of a long agitation, it was decided to 
draw up a new charter for the city of Baltimore to replace 
the antiquated system under which the city was governed, 
Mr. Gilman was chosen as one of the members of the com- 
mission charged with this duty; among the most important 
features of the new charter was the creation of a small and 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 269 

non-political School Board, and of this board Mr. Gilman 
became one of the original members, serving as such from 
1897 until 1902. He also served for a number of years as 
one of the Trustees of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore 
and of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and he took an active 
part in the organization of the Municipal Art Society. 
Among the great number of isolated bits of activity in which 
he was engaged, special mention may be made of two, — the 
saving of the Mercantile Library when it was about to be 
abandoned after the opening of the Pratt Free Library, 
because this was a case in which prompt and energetic inter- 
position, the absence of which is so often deplored when 
it is too late, preserved to Baltimore one of those institutions 
which, though minor, do so much to maintain an atmos- 
phere of culture and refinement; and his service as or- 
ganizer and head of the Bureau of Awards at the Atlanta 
Exposition, not because of any extraordinary value of the 
work, but because it illustrates in an unaccustomed field that 
same instinct for organization and achievement that was so 
characteristic of his life-work throughout. 

Of his service as a member of the Venezuela Boundary 
Commission, Mr. Justice Brewer of the United States Su- 
preme Court has written as follows : 

I was associated with Dr. Gilman on the Venezuelan Com- 
mission appointed by President Cleveland to ascertain and 
report the true line of boundary between Venezuela and the 
British Possessions. In the prosecution of its work the range 
and accuracy of his knowledge were soon manifest. I can- 
not say that this was to me an entirely new revelation, for, 
outside of his general reputation, I had had personal deal- 
ings with him which disclosed both. 

One of the first lines of investigation was in respect to 
maps and charts as well as the physical geography of the 
territory in dispute. Here most of us were quite ignorant, 
but he was familiar. Through his assistance a multitude 



270 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

of maps and charts, some almost contemporaneous with the 
first settlement in the northern part of South America, were 
put before us. Obviously they were in many respects, in the 
light of present knowledge, inaccurate, many grossly so. 
Some had been made from mere imagination and guess 
work, some from rumor, while others had been prepared 
from information obtained from travelers, believed to be 
truthful, and whose reports had been carefully compared 
with previous information. Places of settlement were noted 
and other facts stated tending to throw light on the ques- 
tion and extent of occupation and control. In the compari- 
son of these maps and charts and in striving to give just 
weight to all appearing thereon we relied largely on Dr. 
Gilman's familiarity with cartography, his knowledge of the 
reliability of the different map makers, as well as of the 
physical geography of the territory in dispute. Much of 
the information we collected was afterwards used by the 
two nations in the arbitration proceedings between them. 

A single illustration is sufficient. It was claimed by Vene- 
zuela that while it was a Spanish province and during the 
1 8th century there were many Spanish Catholic Missions 
to the Indians established in the territory east and south 
of the Orinoco. Among the evidences of the number, loca- 
tion and size of these Missions were three sketch maps, pre- 
pared by monks at different times about the year 1750, and 
which had been forwarded and preserved in the archives 
of their fraternities across the waters. While their general 
geography was very inaccurate, yet on each were located 
various Missions with a statement of the number of mission- 
aries and their Spanish assistants, of the Indians gathered 
about them and the size of their herds of cattle. And in 
respect to each was stated the number of leagues distant 
from Santo Thome, the first Spanish settlement on the Ori- 
noco. So significant was this evidence, taken in connection 
with other testimony, that on the argument the counsel for 
Great Britain freely declared that they could make no 
claim to the large area thus shown to have been occupied 
by the Missions. 

Another matter is worth mentioning. In selecting the 
members of the Commission (a Commission whose conclu- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 271 

sions could have no binding legal force upon either of the 
disputing nations, nor indeed upon this country) President 
Cleveland aimed to secure not merely gentlemen of local 
reputation but some at least well known in European circles. 
Dr. Gilman and Dr. White especially answered this purpose. 
Each was well known across the waters as a gentleman of 
highest character and most thorough scholarship. In con- 
sequence, both the disputing nations were anxious that the 
report of the Commission should not antagonize their re- 
spective claims, and each promptly offered to place before it 
all the information in its possession and to render all pos- 
sible assistance. Before the Commission had finished its 
investigation, its work was suspended by an arrangement be- 
tween the disputing nations for arbitration. 

Further than this, the first Hague Conference, which met 
after our Commission had ceased its work, recommended 
as one of the means of securing peace between nations that 
in case of a dispute involving matters of fact a Commission 
be first appointed to ascertain and report the truth. It was 
believed that when the truth was known the nations would 
be apt to settle. 

His part in the work of Baltimore's New Charter Com- 
mission is thus characterized by one of his colleagues, Mr. 
George R. Gaither: 

The suggestions and advice of Dr. Gilman were most 
valuable in the preparation of the entire Charter and in out- 
lining its scope. His services were especially valuable in 
preparing the provisions regarding the Department of Edu- 
cation and the Department of Charities and Corrections. 
His long experience in educational matters naturally made 
his views on the subject of education practically a controlling 
influence with his fellow members on the Commission, whilst 
his tact and judgment assisted most materially in reconcil- 
ing the conflicting views as to City Charities, which naturally 
exist in a community like ours, comprising so many varying 
religious and philanthropic institutions. Whilst always firm 
in his adherence to the essential principles which should con- 



272 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

stitute a progressive City government, he was ever ready to 
agree to any modifications which were proposed as to de- 
tails. As a member of the New Charter Commission, I shall 
always remember with great pleasure the privilege of this 
association with Dr. Gilman. His faithful attendance at our 
meetings, his unfailing courtesy, his splendid ability and 
varied experience were deeply appreciated by his fellow 
members of the New Charter Commission. 

The " faithful attendance " mentioned in the last sen- 
tence, as well as the general helpfulness indicated in what 
precedes, was characteristic. No man better illustrated the 
saying that it is the busiest who has the most time. In all 
the multitude of affairs with which he was connected, similar 
reports of the nature of his activity would be forthcoming 
upon inquiry. In the case of the National Civil Service 
Reform League his presidency was understood to involve 
no administrative care or routine labor, but he showed in 
his annual addresses the depth of the interest which he took 
in the promotion of the cause. 

Throughout his life the making of addresses and the writ- 
ing of essays and reviews, chiefly upon educational and 
social subjects, occupied a considerable part of his attention. 
The manuscript list of his " Speeches and Articles," with 
entries for nearly every year from 1853 to 1907, forms quite 
a little volume. Special mention should be made of his 
interest in the establishment of the Nation, to which, in its 
early years, he was a frequent contributor upon educational 
subjects. Some of the most important of his addresses 
on university questions were collected in a volume 1 and 
published in 1898. But his addresses before various bodies, 
and his articles in periodicals, covered a much wider range. 
Besides writings of this character he wrote and edited 
four books, three of which were connected with his in- 

1 University Problems. The Century Co. : New York. 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 273 

terest in the history and workings of American political 
institutions, while the fourth was the biography of a great 
scientist whose friendship, and that of his wife, had meant 
much to him in his early years at Yale. The writing of the 
Life of James D. Dana, which was published in 1899, and 
of the elaborate and thoughtful introduction to a new edi- 
tion of De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," pub- 
lished in 1898, were the work of his busy leisure in the sum- 
mers at North East Harbor. An earlier labor was his selec- 
tion and editing of the miscellaneous writings of Francis 
Lieber, which appeared in 1881; and two years later ap- 
peared the life of James Monroe in the American Statesmen 
series. 

In 1900 Mr. Gilman was asked to contribute a number 
of important articles on educational topics to the " New 
International Encyclopaedia," and shortly afterwards the 
proposition was made to him of becoming one of the three 
chief editors of this work, the other two being Professor 
Harry Thurston Peck and Mr. Frank Moore Colby. He 
was assured that whatever had been already done should 
be undone at whatever cost, if it failed to meet with his 
approval, and that everything thereafter to be done would 
be subject to his approbation. He took a very active part 
in the shaping and planning of the Encyclopaedia and in the 
supervision of its actual execution. One of his fellow editors 
(Professor Peck) gives the following account of his work 
upon the Encyclopaedia : 

Dr. Gilman's wide knowledge of the personnel of contem- 
porary scholarship was invaluable to us in dividing the work 
into departments and in placing each department in charge 
of the right man. He seemed to have a minute acquaintance 
with every one who had achieved anything. He could esti- 
mate exactly the worth of a contributor, pointing out his 
especial merits and noting his defects, — both with admi- 



274 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

rable judgment and an acute perception of what was required. 
The planning of an encyclopaedia is, I think, the most diffi- 
cult part in the construction of it. It was in this and in the 
suggestions which he made as to the selection of contributors 
that Dr. Gilman's association with this work of reference 
was most valuable. Yet he did not stop at that. His inter- 
est in the carrying out of a thousand and one details was very 
keen. All the galley proofs were sent to him, and afterward 
the page proofs; and his personal attention to them is at- 
tested by the many notes which he made upon the margin 
and by the numerous letters which he wrote regarding the 
different questions which continually arose. 



Mr. Gilman's early realization of the importance to the 
community of charitable work carried on in an enlightened 
spirit, and his grasp of the principles that are fundamental 
to such work, were remarkable. His address at the opening 
of the State Industrial School at Middletown, Connecticut, 
in June, 1870, has already been referred to * as giving evi- 
dence of the strong hold which at that early date the ideas 
of truly efficient charitable work had upon him; and in 
after life he never lost an opportunity of advancing the 
practical application of those ideas. As has been stated 
above, he was the prime mover in the foundation of the 
Charity Organization Society of Baltimore, and a potent 
influence in its work for many years. A few years after its 
formation, he picked out Amos G. Warner, a graduate stu- 
dent in the Economic Department of the Johns Hopkins, 
as a man specially qualified to be General Secretary of the 
Society. Mr. Warner proved to be a man of exceptional 
ability and became a leader of national reputation upon 
questions of charity. His book " American Charities " is 
still a standard text-book. 

1 Chapter II, page 89. 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 275 

Mr. Gilman did all he could to connect the Johns Hop- 
kins University with the charitable work of the community, 
recognizing that intelligent and scientific method in dealing 
with the unfortunate and the vicious is an important element 
in any scheme for social betterment, and that the university 
is one of the strongest agencies for raising the standards of 
the people of a community in dealing with their fellow-men. 
He opened the halls of the University to the use of the 
Charity Organization Society and other bodies devoted to 
social improvement, and he instituted lectures on charity 
work in the Department of Economics of the University. 
The first course of these lectures was given by Amos G. 
Warner, and formed the foundation of his book above men- 
tioned; subsequent lecturers were Jeffrey R. Brackett, after- 
wards called to become the head of the Boston School for 
Training Social Workers, and John M. Glenn, who has had 
charge of the work of the Russell Sage Foundation since 
its inception. The students of the Department of Econom- 
ics also became connected with the Charity Organization 
Society as friendly visitors and in other capacities. Their 
work with the Society was looked upon as practical field 
work in connection with their study of theory in the Uni- 
versity, a practice which has had good results both for the 
University and for the students. It has produced a number 
of leaders in social work. 

Dr. Gilman's broad spirit of charity was well shown in a 
reception which he gave at his house in Baltimore in 1892, 
to which were invited representatives of all the important 
charitable associations in the city. In a letter referring to 
this meeting, he said: 

Frequently there was a general conference upon the 
methods of charitable work in Baltimore, and a desire was 
expressed that " the United Workers " of the city might 
oftener meet one another. It was to furnish an opportunity 
for mutual acquaintance that delegates from all the princi- 



276 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

pal charitable associations were invited to assemble at 1300 
Eutaw Place on Monday evening last. About one hundred 
and fifty persons (representing probably a still larger num- 
ber of charitable undertakings) were present. The list of 
persons invited was prepared in our Central Office. It was 
limited only by the capacity of the parlors thus thrown open. 
It was a delightful sight to find those who differ widely from 
one another on other subjects assemble solely for the pur- 
pose of showing by their presence an interest in the relief of 
poverty and suffering and in the prevention of vice and 
crime. There was but one thought dominant in the meeting 
— " Good will to men ! " 

Mr. Gilman's membership in the Charter Commission 
gave him an opportunity of doing signal service in the im- 
provement of the city's methods of dealing with charity 
problems. Shortly before the appointment of the Charter 
Commission, a special commission on the city's charities had 
been appointed by the mayor, and had made some very 
valuable and logical recommendations. Mr. Gilman quickly 
saw the significance of these recommendations, and suc- 
ceeded in introducing into the charter the important prin- 
ciples upon which they were based. The consequence was 
a fundamental change in the system, or rather lack of system, 
which had previously existed. Instead of almost random 
contributions to charitable institutions privately managed, 
city appropriations to these institutions were required to be 
made on the basis of services actually rendered and duly cer- 
tified, and proper inspection of all institutions receiving sub- 
ventions from the city was provided for. 

There is no need to enumerate the multiplicity of particu- 
lar services in the field of charity which Mr. Gilman ren- 
dered during his residence in Baltimore, but this sketch of 
them may well close with an extract from a letter defending 
the Charity Organization Society against ignorant or preju- 
diced criticism, which was remarkable for its vigorous logic 
and for its strong feeling. Seldom perhaps has a better 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 277 

answer been given to the objection, still too current, that 
money given to the Charity Organization Society is absorbed 
in the payment of administrative expenses. After setting 
forth in sufficient detail and in most convincing form what 
the work is which is really accomplished by such a society, 
Mr. Gilman's letter closes as follows: 

My own work in the association is very slight, almost 
nominal; but this gives me one great advantage, — free- 
dom to speak of those who are the workers. I can testify 
that our managers include some of the most intelligent, the 
most benevolent, and the most devoted men and women of 
this city. They give liberally to the treasury, — and better 
than gold and silver, they give constant attention to the 
problems of improvidence, suffering and want. The Gen- 
eral Secretary is known as one of the most efficient and skill- 
ful charity workers in this country. Our offices are managed 
upon business methods. Our agents are experienced, sym- 
pathetic and judicious. Our corps of voluntary friendly vis- 
itors is a noble band of philanthropic men and women. It 
cannot be that such people will be wasteful, or that they will 
suffer the money entrusted to them to be injudiciously spent. 
It is economy that they wish to promote. It is waste that 
they try to check. In view of these facts, the question be- 
fore the public is simply this, — whether labors like these, 
— labors that are so unselfish, so well considered, and so 
efficacious; labors that are in exact accordance with the 
methods approved by the best men of other cities; labors 
that save the city from vice, vagrancy, idleness, intemper- 
ance, begging, — are worth what they cost. In the name of 
economy, in the name of the distressed and needy, in the 
name of Christian Charity, I plead for a generous support 
of those who go as friends and counsellors among the poor, 
and who strive to make easier and more efficacious the char- 
itable work of all other institutions, endowments, churches, 
missions, benevolent associations, city agencies and private 
individuals. Such is the field of the Charity Organization 
Society, — co-operation, not rivalry. 



278 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

In the closing years of his life an opportunity came to 
Mr. Gilman once more to exercise an important influence 
on the institution of a great enterprise for human better- 
ment; and this time what was involved related to a new 
departure in the domain of charity, as remarkable in its 
field as were the foundation of the Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity and of the Carnegie Institution in theirs. In reply to a 
request from Mr. Robert W. De Forest for advice concern- 
ing the use of a prospective $10,000,000 endowment, he 
wrote as follows: 

October 29, 1906. 
Dear Sir : 

It would be much easier for me to talk over this great 
possibility than to write without consultation. If a formal 
paper were drawn up I might make suggestions for the en- 
largement or emendation of the scheme. 

Assuming that the sum of ten millions or more may be 
devoted to what is called Sociology, the hints which I have 
written on the enclosed page may be suggestive if not help- 
ful otherwise. I should esteem it a great privilege to be " of 
counsel " in a case so important and so promising. 
Yours sincerely, 

(Signed) D. C. Gilman. 
Robert W. DeForest, Esq. 

[Enclosure] 

An institution for encouraging inquiry and publication 
in respect to the best methods of promoting Philanthropy, 
Popular Education, and Social Improvements; the study 
of the causes of Ignorance, Poverty, Vice and Crime; the 
suggestion of remedies and ameliorations for the bad con- 
ditions that are or may be prevalent; the initiation or sup- 
port of promisory agencies. 

It should be a unique as well as an important foundation, 
the purposes of which are not likely to be accomolished by 
the subscriptions of individuals. 

It should be an independent establishment like those 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 279 

founded by Peabody, Smithson, Lowell, Peter Cooper, 
Rockefeller, Carnegie and others. 

The Trustees should not be too many and most of them 
should be near the center, but not all, as it is important to 
give a national character to the foundation. 

There should be a paid Secretary or Executive officer, of 
the highest qualities, as may be required. 

A central office and library for the accumulation of printed 
and manuscript information, — akin to the well equipped 
index-bureau of the General Education Board, with clerks 
qualified to answer inquiries. 

Annual or occasional grants to societies and institutions 
on certain prescribed conditions. 

A system of publications by which large works and small 
can be printed and distributed. 

Courses of lectures and single addresses from experts to 
be given in different cities. 

A provision for specific investigations to be made by qual- 
ified Commissions. 

In the following year Mrs. Sage made the great gift upon 
which the Russell Sage Foundation was established, and its 
work was started along lines substantially identical with 
those indicated in Mr. Gilman's letter. Although near the 
close of his seventy-sixth year, he was appointed one of the 
Trustees of the Foundation, and entered upon this new field 
of activity with an enthusiasm which it was delightful to 
see. In a family letter, written the day he heard of the 
consummation of Mrs. Sage's gift, he wrote : " This is truly 
magnificent. It is full of promise, and I need hardly say 
to you that I am delighted to take part in such an organiza- 
tion. I have just telegraphed and written to Mr. De Forest 
' of course ' accepting." 

In his connection with charity work Mr. Gilman showed 
the same qualities of greatness as in the sphere of education. 
He had a rare sympathy with the strong as well as with the 



28o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

weak. One of his most notable qualities was his habit of 
laying on others responsibilities which they could carry and 
which he knew would develop their power and capacity. 
When he gave to any one a task, he gave with it great free- 
dom of action, while continuing to act as a frank adviser. 
Many a young man was indebted to Dr. Gilman for insisting 
that he should swim for himself. 

His power of getting quickly to the center and substance 
of a person or a question, and avoiding non-essentials, was 
extraordinary. His sharp insight often steered affairs away 
from fatal shoals and rocks onto which others would have 
floundered by reason of near-sighted attention to detail. At 
the same time he always looked at all sides of a proposition 
and tried to discover its full significance. His desire to 
make everything fit into its place in the community and 
play a proper part in furthering the general welfare was 
almost a passion. Recognizing fully what was due to each 
individual, he always considered first how the interests 
of the whole community could best be cemented and 
advanced. 

Mr. Gilman's earnest interest and helpful activity in works 
of philanthropy and charity extended throughout his whole 
life. It began before he had chosen the career in which he 
became one of the nation's leaders, and it continued, after 
he had laid down his great educational and scientific re- 
sponsibilities, almost to the day of his death. The undimin- 
ished ardor of his interest and the unfailing fidelity of his 
labor in these good works, in the last years of his life, make 
peculiarly appropriate the application to himself of words 
that he once spoke of a fellow worker in charity: " We can- 
not imagine the activities to which our associate has gone 
forward, but if those who leave us continue on the lines they 
have followed here, this departed friend is still in the benefi- 
cent work of the Master, in whose footsteps he has been 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 281 

walking. . . . His work remains for us to carry on, in the 
memory of his unselfishness and in the inspiration of his 
example." 



During the period of Mr. Gilman's service as President 
of Johns Hopkins he made five trips to Europe, glimpses 
of some of which may be of interest. He was not a copious 
letter writer and kept nothing in the way of diary or journal 
beyond fugitive memoranda. Of the first of these visits 
to Europe in 1877, immediately after his marriage, hardly 
any record seems to have been preserved in the form of 
letters; and on the occasion of the next European trip, in 
1883, Mrs. Gilman appears to have done most of the family 
letter writing. One of her letters, telling of a visit to the 
English Norwich, the ancestral home of the Gilmans, may 
be given here: 

Norwich, July 7, 1883. 
We came from London this afternoon through a lovely 
country and this exquisite English summer atmosphere, and 
here we are in old Norwich at a quaint old-fashioned inn 
which you can easily imagine with its funny little court, its 
landlady with her curls and keys, the high curtained beds, 
the highly communicative and interested waiter, and best of 
all its crisp cleanliness which I fear could not be equalled at 
the Wauregan House, Norwich, Conn., where I am happy 
to say we do not " put up." We arrived at half past six, 
but in these northern latitudes the day is by no means over 
at that hour, so after refreshing ourselves with some tea 
and bread and butter we took a carriage and drove about 
to see the place. It is a large thriving town of 100,000 
inhabitants and is all up and down hill like its American 
namesake, with a great many picturesque old churches and 
buildings, a lovely cathedral and a great square castle domi- 
nating the whole. Parts of the old wall remain here and 



282 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

there, but the modern spirit is hard at work to freshen every- 
thing up. Dean Goulburn's deanery in the close is a very 
picturesque old house. After driving for some time we 
went to Mr. Gilman's, the Mayor's — almost the last rep- 
resentative of the name over here. He and his wife were 
delightfully warm and cordial and claimed us as relatives. 
They live in a pretty place, " Stafford House," just out of 
town, with pretty lawn and trees and gardens, and are evi- 
dently wealthy people. Mrs. Gilman is a dear little woman, 
all cordiality and pleasantness and her husband has the real 
Gilman look. They insisted upon our dining with them to- 
morrow at their early Sunday dinner, so we are to go to the 
Cathedral service in the morning with Mrs. Gilman and see 
the Mayor come in his robe and chain and escort, and after 
the service are to drive home with her. In the afternoon 
a carriage is to call for us and take us out to Hingham, the 
little town from which the puritan Gilmans emigrated 250 
years ago. I tell Daniel he has a most sentimental desire 
to take his children to see the church where his ancestors 
refused to worship. . . . 

This morning we went to the Cathedral and heard Dean 
Goulburn preach — a beautiful face and a voice like a sweet 
bell, but a poor sermon. It was interesting to see " His 
most worshipful the Mayor " come in preceded by two 
maces, two " castles " and an immense sword, while the 
organ played " God save the Queen." He wore a scarlet 
fur-trimmed robe and an immense gold chain. We sat in 
the choir. After, we drove to the Gilmans, where we had 
a delightful time. They are the kindest, sweetest of people. 
Mrs. G. a charmer. Then we drove 14 miles to Hingham, 
where there is a beautiful old Parish church. The choir is 
full of Gilman tombs, but nothing more recent than 1750. 
The last of the name died a few years since. Daniel looked 
up the old family solicitor, who I think regarded us as the 
recreant Gilmans of 250 years ago returning to their 
duty. 

The heavy burden assumed by Mr. Gilman during the 
months from May to August, 1889, in perfecting the organ- 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 283 

ization of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and putting it in 
shape for the opening, while at the same time attending to 
his duties as President of the University, resulted in a great 
strain on his health. Upon the completion of his work in 
connection with the Hospital he was given a year's leave of 
absence, and in the autumn of 1889 started for a Mediter- 
ranean tour. 

This journey formed the richest of Mr. Gilman's experi- 
ences of travel; and the combination of geographical and 
historical interest with that of the picturesque and the human 
side of it was such as to appeal in an exceptional degree to 
a man of precisely his training and predilections. He wrote 
a number of letters relating to his tour for several Ameri- 
can publications, among them a highly appreciative account 
of Cardinal Lavigerie and his work, sent from Algiers to 
the Christian Union, and a letter to the Nation from the 
same place, reviving the memory of " A Forgotten Consul," 
William Shaler, an American of whose brave and signal 
service in the days of Decatur and Bainbridge he found 
memorials at Algiers, but whose memory has not been duly 
preserved by his countrymen. The tour included partici- 
pation in the celebration by the University of Montpellier 
of the completion of its sixth century, and, at its other 
extreme, comprised a visit to Palestine. On his return to 
Baltimore Mr. Gilman gave a series of lectures at the Uni- 
versity on the geography of the Mediterranean and its rela- 
tion to history. In his address at the opening of the fif- 
teenth year of the University in October, 1890, Mr. Gilman 
referred to his recent travels, in part as follows : 

I have been talking as if the events of the last fourteen 
years made a chapter of ancient history. No doubt they 
seem so to some of our younger friends, but I ought not to 
make such an error, for I am freshly arrived from Heliop- 
olis, where a solitary obelisk, standing in a field of waving 
corn, marks the site where Moses and Plato are said to have 



284 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

studied, and I have been a guest in many institutions that 
were venerable when Christopher Columbus made his voy- 
ages. Think of the impression made upon a traveller from 
Baltimore, where there are hardly any buildings one hun- 
dred years old, when the warden of Merton College, in 
Oxford, invited him to visit " the muniment room " of that 
college and promised to show him the archives, kept for six 
hundred years in the same place. Or surmise, if you can, 
what reply he made to a lady in the gardens of Christ 
Church, when she asked: "What is the difference be- 
tween the Johns Hopkins University and the University of 
Cambridge? " 

It would give me a pleasure, if the time permitted, to 
recount this evening the series of intellectual photographs 
which were received on the long journey that I made last 
winter. In some respects it was the most stimulating period 
of all my school life. After visiting the great exhibition in 
Paris, and discovering (with an effort which made me feel 
like a discoverer of America) the modest contributions 
which were made by Baltimore to that museum, the most 
wonderful display of recent science, industry, and art that 
the world has ever seen, I passed through the principal cities 
of Spain to the Straits of Gibraltar. Then followed eleven 
voyages upon the Mediterranean. Thus we were able to 
see a little of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, and to taste the 
dates of Biskra beneath the palm trees of the oasis. We 
visited Carthage, of which Mr. Freeman says " there is no 
spot which the unity of history may more rightly claim as 
one of its choicest possessions," and were impressed as he 
was by the fact that a successor of Cyprian had just built 
" a metropolitan church on the height which is at once the 
Bozrah (Byrsa) of Dido and the Hill of Saint Lewis, the 
spot from which Gaiseric ruled the seas, the spot to which 
Heraclitus dreamed of translating the dominion of the elder 
and younger Rome." 

We spent a few days in Malta. Then came a visit to 
Syracuse, Agrigentum, Palermo and Naples. Our faces 
were then turned to Egypt, where we ascended the Nile to 
Philae. A visit to Jerusalem followed. Then there was 
a long voyage along the coast of Asia Minor and through 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 285 

the islands of the .ZEgean. We visited Beirut, Smyrna, 
Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Mycenae, Tiryns, Epidaurus, 
Olympia. Then our route was homeward. 

The views of the Mediterranean, as seen from the Asiatic 
and African coasts, as well as from Europe, are of surpass- 
ing beauty, for over large areas mountains and high hills lie 
within a short distance of the deep blue sea. In vain the 
mind endeavors to decide whether the finer prospect is seen 
from Taormina or Algiers, whether the Bay of Naples is 
more beautiful than the Bay of Smyrna, whether the heart 
beats quicker as the spectator looks out from the citadel at 
Cairo, beyond the verdure of the Nile to the barren plains 
where rise the pyramids — earliest important monuments 
of human industry; or as he surveys from the Acropolis the 
beautiful hills and fertile plains surrounding the city of 
Athens, and the magnificent ruins which recall the days of 
Pericles; or as he stands upon the Mount of Olives and sees 
upon the east the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, — 
upon the west, the City of the Great King, and the moun- 
tains that are round about Jerusalem. 

Every country had its special lessons, taught by new ac- 
quaintances and suggested by unfamiliar circumstances, ex- 
citing the mind to inquiry and attention, taxing the memory, 
suggesting unanswerable questions, and illustrating at once 
the unity of mankind and the diversities of social environ- 
ment. It was always interesting to trace the duration of 
ideas once expressed in literature or recorded upon monu- 
ments. The struggles of humanity after light, truth, power 
and perpetuity, and the repeated disappointments which 
have attended the noblest efforts, came to mind as a mournful 
chapter of fulfilled prophecy. The histories of Herodotus, 
of Pausanias, of the Bible, acquired distinctness when they 
were read upon the sites to which they refer. The literature 
of the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Latins became animate 
with reality. The importance of the excavations which 
have been made in the last half century and are now pro- 
gressing with more zest than ever can hardly be over-rated. 

A special objective of his next visit to Europe, in 1892, 
was the Tercentenary of the University of Dublin, which 



286 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN , 

Mr. Gilman attended as the representative of the Johns 
Hopkins University. The following is an extract from 
an account of the celebration which Mr. Gilman sent to a 
Baltimore newspaper: 

There were many speeches during the week, but no such 
formal address or oration as would have been thought essen- 
tial in like celebrations at home. Thus at Harvard, a few 
years ago, we heard the eloquent historical discourse of 
James Russell Lowell, and at Columbia the oration of Fred- 
eric R. Coudert. The only stately address which could be 
compared with these was the sermon of the Dean in St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, after the procession just referred to had 
taken their seats, but this was restricted to the religious his- 
tory of the university and by the necessary limitations of 
an hour devoted to sacred worship. But there were many 
short speeches — some of them informal and after-dinner; 
some of them ceremonious, when the addresses of distant 
universities were presented to the University of Dublin, and 
some of them thoroughly enthusiastic and inspiring, when 
Max Miiller, the philologist; Vambery, the Asiatic trav- 
eler; Stockvis, the physician from Amsterdam; Leon Say, 
of Paris; Cremona, the Italian mathematician, and our 
countryman, Gen. Francis A. Walker, of Boston, addressed 
the students. 

With all the dignified exercises of the week sports were 
continually blended. The beautiful grounds of the college 
were open every afternoon for cricket matches, and on Fri- 
days for six hours there was a succession of athletic games, 
the winners receiving prizes. Thousands of people, covered 
by their umbrellas, stood watching these sports unaffrighted 
by the showers, and these spectators were ladies and gentle- 
men whose plumes and coats were as indifferent to the rain 
as those of birds and squirrels. Old people as well as young 
enjoyed these contests. All the dons of the college were on 
the ground, and the most illustrious of the guests looked on 
with pleasure. Indeed this festive spirit was one of the most 
delightful characteristics of the week. It seemed as if our 
Irish hosts had the art of enjoyment. They knew how to 
play and how to make others play. There was no rudeness, 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 287 

no disagreeable hilarity, no scrambling and crowding at any 
assembly; but by the most careful prearrangements, there 
was a place for everybody who had the right to be present 
and everybody was in his place. One afternoon the pro- 
vost's daughter planted a mulberry tree within the college 
grounds to mark the tercentenary — and a Sapphic ode in 
Latin was sung. One evening a long historical ode was 
given by a large chorus, accompanied by an orchestra. An- 
other evening the students acted as the male characters in 
Sheridan's Rivals, and all the dignities, bishops, professors, 
lords and ladies, men of distinction in science and letters 
were present, applauding. I think this art of enjoying lei- 
sure and of entering into the sports of young people is one 
of the reasons — and the climate is another — why the 
English who lead intellectual lives hold out in their full 
activity so much longer than Americans. The number of 
British scholars, assembled here during the past week, who 
are over seventy years of age is noteworthy. Men like 
James Martineau, who is nearer to ninety than he is to 
eighty, and like Lord Kelvin (Sir Wm. Thomson), who has 
completed fourscore years, were seen everywhere, appar- 
ently as full of enjoyment as the youngest graduate. At the 
closing ball of the students the dances were opened by Lord 
and Lady Zetland, the vice-regal dignities, and by Lord and 
Lady Dufferin. 

In an editorial account of the Dublin celebration which 
appeared in the New York Churchman, the following refer- 
ence occurs to the speech made by Mr. Gilman as the rep- 
resentative of America : 

As the speaker from each country went up, of course his 
" national anthem " was played. That for the Irish dele- 
gates was " St. Patrick's Day," and it brought the audience 
to their feet, set the rear portion of the house half dancing 
and waving their programs in time with the music. Nor 
should it be omitted, as to an American the most amusing 
circumstance of the day, that when President Gilman, of 
Johns Hopkins, ascended the stage to speak for America in 



288 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

beauteous array and stately demeanor, he had to sustain the 
whole, standing with gravest and most benignant mien, till 
the band could finish " Yankee Doodle," after which he elec- 
trified and carried away the audience by the best speech of 
the day. 

The letters to his daughters given below relate to the 
Scotch and English, not the Irish portion of this tour: 

Inverness, July 24, 1892. 
Here we are in our most northern station, — after a week 
of Oban and its excursions. You have heard through 
Mamma's note and mine a part of the story, — but I will 
see if I can pick up a few more crumbs from our perpetual 
feast. Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we are as quiet 
as tired travellers can be. Tuesday was enforced quiet be- 
cause we had fixed our eyes upon Iona, — but the winds 
blew and the sky lowered and the sea said come not in this 
direction. But Wednesday was Queen's weather, and with 
the sky bright, the waters smooth, the temperature delight- 
ful and the boat large and steady, we made one of the pleas- 
antest excursions of our tour. Staffa interested me more 
than the Giant's Causeway which it so closely resembles. 
We entered Fingal's Cave in a boat, going to its furthest 
extremity, some two hundred feet, while many of our com- 
panions went on foot along a series of steps and galleries. 
We sailed close to the little island for a considerable dis- 
tance so that we could see its remarkable structure. I tried 
to make out the basis for Whitehouse's speculations as to 
human sculpture. The only place which would even suggest 
hand-craft, or I ought to say arm-craft, was not a base for 
hypothesis but a roof. The top of the cave did look as if 
some monster of the deep had removed with his clumsy den- 
tistry the supporting pillars, leaving compact, closely fitting 
sockets above. It is ten years since I read Whitehouse and 
I do not remember exactly what he said. Doubtless Mr. 
Longfellow, who knows everything about architecture, will 
remember. Iona, like Staffa, had a most familiar look; it 
must be just as you saw it, except for a new-made grave just 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 289 

outside the oldest chapel, where a certain Mr. Johnson, who 
for a score of years has been led by antiquarian or eccle- 
siastical zeal, I did not hear which, to make his annual visit 
to the island, (coming from Lancashire) has at last found 
rest. Thursday, with weather good, but not so good, we 
made the tour toward Glasgow, through the sounds, and the 
Crinan Canal, changing at Doonan to another boat which 
bore us to Hellensburgh. Then by Dumbarton we went to 
Balloch at the south end of Loch Lomond for the night. 
We took this course to avoid the crowded station at Glas- 
gow, more crowded than usual just now because " the Glas- 
gow fair is on," — as we hear continually. There was n't 
much to tell of Balloch, or to remember, except that Mamma 
beat me at Halma — (but, Lizzie, I have beaten since!) 
Queen's weather in the morning on Loch Lomond, and an 
enchanting sail from one end of it to the other. A stage 
ride, and a car ride, over the same route that we followed 
from the Trossachs, brought us into Oban. We were re- 
freshed at the excellent " Alexandra Hotel," which seemed 
home-like, (as a hotel that is good always seems when one 
returns to it) and at five o'clock with big trunks and little 
trunks, hat box and rug-bundle, we were on a boat again 
bound toward the Caledonian Canal. The day was as clear 
as that on which we went to Iona, and the weather actually 
warm, for the first time since we left New York. We went 

beyond Bally and Fort Augustus to a little place of 

which we did not hear until we were well on the way, Ba- 
navie, but it appeared to be the regular thing to stop here 
for the night and not, as we had expected, nearer Oban. In 
the morning, when we entered the canal-boat, whom should 
we find in the adjacent yacht but our distant kinsfolk, the 
Alexander Gilmans of Brighton. I wrote to Aunt Louise 
about our making their acquaintance at Oban. They came 
and made us a call before the canal-boat started and we 
may see them here tomorrow. We found them very pleas- 
ant acquaintances. I must be a Gilman of Gilmans, for they 
are struck by my likeness to Mr. A. Gillman's father, the 
son of Dr. Gillman, Coleridge's protector. I will not try 
to describe our journey, for you know its outlines, and there 
were no special incidents with one exception. The boat 

*9 



2 9 o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

halted for three quarters of an hour, carriages were in wait- 
ing and we made a detour to see one of the most beautiful 
of cascades, — the falls of Foyen. It is not so much the 
height of the fall as it is the volume of water that springs 
with a leap, like a gigantic stag, down the deep cut and 
densely wooded chasm. I wonder if this side-show was 
open to you. It came to me as a complete surprise, for I 
had not even noticed the allusions to it in our guide-books. 
We enjoyed the entire route from Banavie to Inverness. 
Near views and distant were all good. Ben Nevis, with its 
relics of winter snow near the summit of 4400 feet, made us 
talk of Green Mountain and our dear ones at North East, 
— and indeed, all along the journey we were making com- 
parisons with the familiar shores of Maine, which do not 
suffer by comparison. The conveniences of travel are much 
greater here, and on the whole the scenery is finer and more 
varied. Indeed I think yesterday was one of the most de- 
lightful sections of our journey so far. I wish I could go 
over it again, — not today but one of these days. . . . 



Edinburgh, August 7, 1892. 

The week has been full of pleasant varieties. We have 
been to many of the meetings of the British Association and 
have heard the opening lecture of Professor Geikie on the 
History of Geology, since Hutton and Werner disputed 
upon fundamental principles one hundred years ago; and 
that of Professor Milnes Marshall on " pedigrees," — one 
of the best popular presentations that I have ever listened 
to of a comprehensive subject which might have been treated 
with all the technicality of modern biology. We also heard 
Professor M'Calister's opening discourse on the outlook of 
anthropology. We were present at an interesting discussion 
in which Lord Kelvin and Professor Helmholz took part. 
But we have secured our afternoons for delightful excur- 
sions. Once we went to Prince Arthur's Seat and Craig- 
millar Castle, with our delightful cousins; once to Dum- 
fermline; once to Roslyn; and yesterday our entire day was 
given up to the Land of Scott. A special train left Waverley 
Station at eleven o'clock for Melrose. There nineteen 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 291 

coaches and wagonettes were in waiting by which the party 
was carried from point to point. To Mamma this was 
familiar country; to my eyes it was all new. But the pic- 
tures and descriptions have been so numerous and so good 
that I seemed to have seen it all, — many years ago. I was 
delighted with the whole excursion. Every thing remains 
in Sir Walter's apartments as it was — the books, the pic- 
tures, the furniture, the bust of Chantrey, the portrait of Sir 
Walter and his dog by Raeburn, the armor, the souvenirs 
given to him by admiring friends, the gardens, the terraces, 
and the gently flowing Tweed. Melrose, I am sorry to say, 
did not come up to my expectations. It is so hidden by poor 
dwelling houses that the general view is disappointing. 
Dryburgh on the other hand was " all my fancy painted 
her." We paid our homage to the tomb of Sir Walter and 
to that of Sir David Brewster, and we loitered in the en- 
closures until all our party of one hundred and fifty persons 
had started for the coaches. When the procession was again 
formed we were driven over Bremerryde Hill in order that 
we might see beautiful views of the Valley of the Tweed 
and of the distant Cheviot hills. Then the entire party was 
entertained at Gattonside House, where there are spacious 
rooms, beautiful gardens and fine lawns and gracious ladies 
with abundance of refreshment, ices, fruit, sandwiches, tea, 
coffee and, for those who wished it, the juice of the barley 
corn. Here we saw the widow of Sir David Brewster, who 
was first President of the British Association, sixty-two 
years ago, if I remember aright, but Lady Brewster is not 
the elderly person that you may suppose, for we were told 
that when seventeen years old she married him in his eighty- 
second year! Another ride in the coaches brought us after 
tea to the Melrose Station, and by a special train we were 
carried to Edinburgh, reaching our hotel before 10 o'clock 
in the evening. I cannot begin to tell you of all the pleasant 
people whom we have met. We have taken dinner at Lord 
M'Laren's, one of the Justices of the Court of Sessions, and 
at Mr. John Murray's, (the head of the " Challenger " 
publications). We lunched at Sir William Turner's, where 
we met our old Oxonian friend Sir Henry Acland, who gave 
Mamma an itinerary for Devonshire and urged her to visit 



292 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

his brother and nephew ! Then I went without Mamma to 
5 o'clock tea at Professor Ewart's, where the Burdon San- 
dersons (Mrs. Cunliffe's friends) are staying, and also to 
Professor Tait's, where there was a brilliant group of physi- 
cists, our host, Lord Kelvin, Sir G. G. Stokes, Professor 
Wiedeman of Erlangen and Professor Schoube of Gro- 
ningen, — all assembled to meet Professor and Mrs. Von 
Helmholtz. So you see our time has been well occupied, 
— but nevertheless we have taken everything leisurely and 
we have no sense of fatigue or hurry. Sir W. Turner, of 
all whom we have met, has been most friendly. He is an 
anatomist of the highest distinction, and the head of the 
Medical School in the University of Edinburgh. 

I began my letter early on Sunday morning. It is now 
well on toward noon Monday and, for the second time since 
we arrived in Scotland, the skies are " dripping wet." We 
shall presently take a cab and go out for our last glimpse of 
Edinboro' and tomorrow, unless we change our minds, we 
shall turn our faces toward London, stopping en route at 
Durham, York and Lincoln. We have accepted invitations 
to visit the Jebbs, Creightons and Farrars, and have had 
more or less formal invitations to visit new acquaintances 
which we do not see the way to accept. It is with real regret 
that we close our accounts with Scotland. Of all the many 
journeys I have made, this has been one of the very pleas- 
antest. If our dear daughters could only be near us, with 
our sisters and our cousins and our nieces and nephews and 
brothers and old friends, we should look at once for a house 
in Edinboro' and a lodge at St. Fillan's ! 



London, August 27. 

I sent Lizzie a special note from Winchester, so you shall 
have a special account of my visit to East London. Lord 
Stamford, who you remember perhaps spent many days in 
Baltimore, invited me to take a fish dinner or luncheon and 
then go with him on his weekly visit to Shoreditch and other 
charming places. I could not accept the fish, but I did go 
to a district meeting of the Charity Org. Soc. in Hack- 
ney, where I saw just such a gathering and heard just such 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 293 

tales as I might have seen or heard in Baltimore. There 
was the fraudulent letter writer whose appeal for help was 
sent in by Lord Spencer for investigation; there was the 
man out of work in Birmingham whose wife in London 
wished to get to him ; there was the shiftless drunkard whose 
family was suffering, and so on through the melancholy 
list. Two ministers, two laymen, the agent, a nice young 
lady trained at Girton, and the Chairman (Lord Stamford) 
were refreshing themselves with a five o'clock cup of tea, 
while they gave the most careful consideration to the cases 
brought forward. The meeting lasted nearly two hours and 
a half, and occurs in like form every week and sometimes 
twice weekly. Then we went to St. Jude's Church, where 
I saw for the first time the mosaic of Watts' picture, Life 
and Time overtaken by the Judgment; then to Toynbee 
Hall, which I had never seen before, and which has grown 
to be quite a large and attractive group of buildings — with 
its lecture hall, lodging rooms, club house and adjacent house 
for men of lower grade than the principal workers. We 
walked through some of the poorest streets, those occupied 
by the Polish Jews being amongst the worst; we saw the 
new tenement houses and the widened streets cut through 
the forlornest neighborhoods, and everywhere marks of im- 
provement were visible. All this good effort begins to tell. 
Cocoa houses, vegetarian restaurants, and tee-totums, — 
a sort of tea club house — are among the agencies for fight- 
ing Alcohol. We dined at Oxford house, — the last even- 
ing of the old house. The next day the establishment moves 
to its new and spacious quarters described in the Guardian 
of June 27. (If you have it still, save it for me.) Whom 
should I find at Oxford House but Mr. Cross, in whose tent 
on the Mt. of Olives we took tea two years ago. I have 
not time to write more just now, but this will be an outline 
for a talk when we meet. 

The last of his European trips during the Johns Hopkins 
Presidency centered about a still more imposing university 
celebration, the four hundredth anniversary of the Univer- 



294 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

sity of Cracow. Below are a few letters to his daughters 
recording some of his impressions: 

Vienna, io a. m. (June 5) 
Tuesday. 

There is not much to tell, — but having a good room, 
and having had a good wash, I am quite ready to say Good 
Morning to " the girls I left behind me." 

From the town where the Trieste train joined the Vene- 
tian, I sent you a postal card, — and then having drunk 
your healths in an excellent glass of beer, and eaten my 
sandwich, and made a dessert of Alice's chocolate, I turned 
into my berth, having no companion in the section. Then 
I slept the sleep of the sound, and did not wake until Phoe- 
bus himself came knocking at the window in all the blaze 
of a glorious dawn. I soon made out that we were drawing 
near the Semering pass, — the most beautiful part of the 
route, and for two hours more the scenery was delightful, 
now reminding me of the Alleghanies, and now of the Sierra 
Nevada. The Valley was beautifully green and the hills 
were for the most part well wooded. Now and then, on the 
distant summit, snow was visible. 

Phoebus was soon followed by Janus, who asked if I 
would have coffee, and in response to my " Ja-wohl," Mer- 
curius came, and gave me a better cup of cafe au la'it than 
I have had in Italy. Then I studied my time tables, and 
guide books, until the long shriek of the engine announced 
our arrival in Vienna. Here, every thing was as easy as it 
would have been at the N. Charles St. Station, and after 
changing my last lire for florins, at the ticket office, I drove 
in a cab to this highly respectable and not wholly inexpensive 
hotel. 

Now I shall " descend," post my letter, get some more 
florins, visit the galleries, and read the papers. 

It is awfully lonesome, — but I am always conscious of 
your good wishes and of Mamma's photograph. The for- 
mer are familiar friends, — the latter is what Lizzie used 
to call " a new sensation." 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 295 

Cracow, Wednesday, 4 p. m. 

Here at last! Leaving Vienna at 8 A.M. in a solitary 
compartment of the express train, an admirable car, as good 
as anything that Pullman provides for us, — I was at first 
startled by finding that the train was off 15 minutes before 
the appointed hour, but I was soon soothed by the explana- 
tion that so many of the Herrschaften were going to the 
celebration at Cracow as to make a division of the train 
necessary. I was in the first section, and the entire adminis- 
tration, so different from the Italian, filled me with pleasure. 
If I had been a prince the conductor could not have been 
more ceremoniously civil. An excellent dejeuner, (twice as 
much as I wanted) from caviar to compotes, through a series 
of meats and vegetables, in short a dinner " complet." The 
line is not interesting, except as well tilled fields and gardens 
and the sight of thrifty people make it so. Off in the dis- 
tance, across the plains, are the great battle fields of Auster- 
litz and Wagram, — but not near enough to be seen. On 
reaching Oderburg Dr. Haupt was in plain sight and the 
next two hours passed quickly enough. What a crowd we 
found at the station! Students, professors, committees, 
ladies, porters, soldiers, — a motley array, — and Polish 
the only known language current. Even Dr. Haupt was 
staggered, but we soon found the desk of the reception com- 
mittee and learned that I was quartered (as requested) at 
the Hotel Dresden and' he at the house of an Oriental pro- 
fessor. He was kind enough to say that he would not leave 
me alone and he succeeded in getting a room close by mine. 
The house is on the central square, near everything. My 
room is No. 1, the best in the house, — large, clean, airy and 
pleasant. That is as far as I have got! We are going to 
rest an hour and then take a drive. The evening reception 
comes at 9 p. m., and there is a pile of cards and announce- 
ments which I have not yet quite mastered. 

Thursday, 10 A. M. 
You will not be surprised that the first thing we did, after 
the midday heat departed, was to drive to the mound, the 
cairn, that commemorates Kosciusko. It is a mile or two 



296 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

out in the suburbs; and after passing through some dis- 
agreeable streets, we entered a long, well graded ascent, 
shaded by horse chestnuts and other trees. On top of this 
hill, which is not quite as high as " East rock," we entered 
an Austrian fortification, and then by a winding foot-path 
ascended the artificial mound that honors the Polish patriot. 
It is a cone, reminding one of a pyramid, rounded. On top 
is a large boulder, with only the one word Kosciusko. But 
the View. It is most interesting. The river Vistula bor- 
dered with rich fields runs through the great broad valley. 
In the distance are high hills, and in the far distance the 
white tops of the Tatra mountains are distinctly seen. From 
the hill we drove to the Cathedral and went down into a 
dark damp crypt, where we stood and looked for a moment 
at the tombs of Kosciusko, Poniatowski and Sobieski. 

We had two hours' rest before the reception, which was 
given in an old cloth-hall, a market place built about 1400 
as an exchange for the guild of drapers. It is now a picture 
gallery, the walls covered with modern pictures. Here was 
a crowd, — ladies, dignities, music and refreshments, like 
many another reception. I was presented to the Bishop or 
Archbishop, and to many famous professors, — but I was 
most glad to meet Sienkiewicz, an attractive vigorous pleas- 
ant man of about fifty years, dignified and affable. He told 
me that twenty years ago he visited America, and he seemed 
moderately interested in what I told him of the popularity 
of his writings among us. 

5 p. M. This has been a full day. It began with proces- 
sions and music, and then came high mass, after which the 
procession was re-formed and walked across the town to the 
University church, where the great ceremonies were held. 
Dr. Haupt and I had a hint that we need not attend the 
mass but might go at once to the other church, so we had 
half an hour of rest before the procession came. All marks 
of the altar were hidden, and in the pulpit a photographic 
camera was placed. On the walls were fine Gobelin tapes- 
tries, and we were placed very near the tomb of Copernicus. 
The Rector's seat was in front of the altar, and all around 
him were the chairs of the professors. The guests faced 
the faculty. I will not try to describe the brilliant scene. 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 297 

Architecture, drapery, costumes, produced a brilliant effect. 
No ladies were present. After vocal music came the Rec- 
tor's speech in Polish, then the presentation of addresses 
for universities and learned societies followed, and the 
ceremony concluded with the bestowal of honorary degrees. 
Simon Newcomb and Comparetti were among the honored. 
I was called out to speak for America, and as Am precedes 
Anglia, it came to pass that I was the first speaker. I spoke 
three or four minutes in English and was heartily greeted 
when I closed. Sienkiewicz came forward and gave me a 
special greeting. More hereafter. Dinner is due. Your 
postal here. 

Friday, 7 A. M. 
Another charming morning in June and another refresh- 
ing sleep. The ceremonious dinner, to which I went just 
after I wrote, was attended by about 500 persons, who came 
to the table at 5.30. As an abundant luncheon, lasting from 
half past one to half past four, had taken away my appetite, 
the dinner to me consisted of sights and sounds. Stunning 
music from a military band, speeches so poorly uttered that 
few could hear them, — a Babel of languages — tired me 
quickly, and instead of going with the company to the 
theatre where only Polish was to be spoken, I returned to 
my lodgings and was sound asleep soon after 10 o'clock. 
For a while I sat and looked out of my window. In front 
of the hotel is a Piazza, about the size of St. Mark's. On 
one side of it is a great church — Santa Maria, with a lofty 
tower, and on the other side of the square the drapers' hall 
where we were received on Wednesday evening. Near by is 
the tower or campanile of an ancient Rath-haus now gone. 
Shops line the other sides of the square. Posts painted in 
blue and white and festooned with evergreen led to the door 
of St. Maria's, and under there the academic processions 
went in the morning. All the buildings of the Piazza were 
handsomely illuminated and a sweeping search light kept 
throwing its beams on objects near and far. Cracow was 
once a court city, and there are many marks of its former 
dignity. The boulevards that surrounded it are now ad- 
mirably kept parks, well shaded, with excellent walks and 



298 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

good seats. The population numbers about 90,000, of 
whom nearly one third are said to be Jews, — dealers in all 
sorts of things. The University dominates the city with its 
large faculties and thousands of students. There are also 
gymnasia and convents and societies of history, science and 
the fine arts. I was constantly reminded of New Haven, — 
by points of resemblance and of contrast. Altogether, the 
impressions have been most agreeable. The professors are 
cultivated men, and the Rector is the very perfection of a 
presiding officer. In his brilliant crimson silk gown, and his 
ermine cape, he was the very picture of dignity and grace, 
receiving each delegation with measured courtesy, — a little 
different toward every party. . . . 

Berlin, Saturday, 9 a. m. 

It is a great change from the capital of Poland to the 
capital of Prussia, — but you see that I have made it. It 
was my intention when I parted from Dr. Haupt, about 
2 p. M. yesterday, to rest overnight in Breslau, and arrive 
here at night-fall; but I found that I could control the com- 
partment all the way to Berlin, so I bought a supplementary 
ticket and came through on a fast train, on time, — all the 
management being far better than is usual, according to our 
experience, in Italy and France. We arrived a few minutes 
after 5 o'clock, and with bag and baggage I was soon 
lodged in this commodious house. Having had my nap, 
my wash and my coffee, I now turn to the ink-stand! 

The second celebration in Cracow differed wholly from 
the first. It was devoted to a commemoration of Coperni- 
cus, — the central point being a monument to the great as- 
tronomer, who was here a student four hundred years ago ! 
The ceremonies took place in the open quadrangle of the old 
university, where Copernicus must have been. It is a beauti- 
ful Gothic cloister, never occupied by monks, but always 
devoted to the work of the university. The new figure un- 
veiled in our presence is that of a young man, in an academic 
dress, engaged in study. It is a spirited work, well mounted, 
and enriched by various accessories. I could not but wonder 
whether any Hopkinsian will be remembered so long, — 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 299 

and if so will it be Sylvester, or Newcomb, or Rowland, or 
some one still a student, and yet unknown to fame. There 
were speeches and songs — But the picture most impressed 
me. This excellent architecture, — here a window and there 
a door, and there a staircase; a gallery, filled with ladies, 
protected by a sculptured balustrade, — the monument, the 
dignified Rector in his ermine and crimson, supported by the 
bearers of ancient maces, the assembly of scholars in all 
sorts of costumes, — all this, in bright sunshine, made a 
tableau never to be forgotten. . . . 

Mr. Gilman referred to the Cracow celebration in his 
•presidential report for the year as follows : 

The ceremonies included a religious service, processions, 
banquets, private hospitality, addresses, the bestowal of 
honorary degrees (one of which came to Professor Simon 
Newcomb, of this University), and the unveiling of a statue 
of Copernicus, a student in Cracow four hundred years ago. 
The enthusiasm with which the loftiest ideals of literature 
and science have been upheld, amid all the perils of time, 
war, political changes, and academic reorganization, made 
a deep impression upon all the visitors. The venerable 
university is just as vigorous, as full of hope, and as much 
the object of pride, as if it were but newly created by the 
gifts of the citizens of Cracow. 



In the closing years of his life a call came to Mr. Gilman, 
which he accepted, to the headship of a great and novel en- 
terprise in the advancement of knowledge; and it goes with- 
out saying that during his active presidency of Johns Hop- 
kins the only barrier to his receiving offers from leading 
institutions throughout the country was the obvious certainty 
that he could not accept them. In spite of this, however, 
he did receive important calls and overtures, — how many 
it is impossible to say. But there are two that present 
marked interest and the correspondence concerning which is 



300 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

accessible. Although in both cases this correspondence was 
more or less confidential, there can be no harm at this dis- 
tance of time in making it public. 

The first of the situations in question was brought about 
by the death of General Francis A. Walker, who had done 
such memorable work in making the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology the great institution which it has become; 
and it is sufficiently indicated in the following letters: 

Boston, i 6th July, '97. 
D. C. Gilman, Esq. 
Dear Sir: 
As the Senior Member of the Executive Committee of 
Mass. Institute of Technology, upon whom devolves the 
responsibility of appointing all its officers, subject to the 
confirmation of the Corporation, it is my pleasant duty to 
invite you to take the position of President of the Institute 
made vacant by the death of General Walker. 

You know the reputation of the Institute and the dignity 
of the position of its chief officer. It is not therefore neces- 
sary for me to dwell upon these points, but only to convey 
to you the wish of the Committee that you may find it pos- 
sible to join them in the conduct of this great public charge. 
I remain 

Yours very truly, 

Augustus Lowell. 

North East Harbour, Me. 
July 20, 1897. 

Dear Sir : 

Your letter of July 16 reached me here yesterday. It 
surprised me as much as it gratified me, for I had received 
no intimation that my name was under consideration. You 
will, I trust, allow me a few days to consider a proposition 
of so much importance. Meanwhile there are two things 
which I ought to say to you. The first is that I am sixty-six 
years old, — and this is an obstacle which cannot be over- 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 301 

come! The second is that I am strongly bound to the Johns 
Hopkins University and I cannot foretell what will be said 
by our Trustees, and by my colleagues, if I should give them 
an intimation of your overtures. 

I trust that, for the sake of all parties interested, these 
negotiations may not be known to the public until a conclu- 
sion is reached, and not then if the decision is adverse. 

I am well acquainted with the character, influence and 
renown of the Institute. I honor the memory of General 
Walker. I should like to live in Boston, the centre of the 
best educational impulses of the country. Yet I apprehend 
that the two considerations I have named will make it appear 
inexpedient for me to leave Baltimore. 
I am, dear Sir, 

Yours with the highest respect, 

Daniel C. Gilman. 
Augustus Lowell, Esq. 

Boston, 226. July '97. 
My dear Sir : 

It is now six months since the death of General Walker, 
and time that his place were filled. We have not thought 
it wise to attempt to do this earlier, out of deference to his 
memory, and awaiting such an opportunity as occurred to us 
when we heard that under the conditions of your present 
charge you might possibly be willing to consider a change 
of duties. You will of course take what time you may re- 
quire to reach a decision, which I hope may be favorable to 
our wishes. 

Personally it would be a great pleasure to me to be asso- 
ciated with you in carrying on the work of the Institute, and 
I should feel it to be a great relief in the discharge of a 
grave responsibility should we be so fortunate as to secure 
your co-operation. 

I quite agree with you that the public has no claim to our 
confidence, but a secret known to more than two persons 
is never safe, however carefully it may be thought to be 
guarded. 

I remain 

Yours very truly, 

Augustus Lowell. 



3 02 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

North East Harbor, Maine, 
July 24, 1897. 
My dear Sir: 

Since receiving your first note, its proposition, as I need 
hardly assure you, has been constantly on my mind. I have 
thought seriously of going to Boston that I might confer 
with you; after which it might be best to consult my asso- 
ciates in Baltimore. This would be likely to give a limited 
publicity to our negotiations which it is desirable to avoid, 
especially as the considerations named in my previous letter 
appear decisive in the light I now have. In view of what 
you say of the Institute, I ought not to keep the question 
open, and so, with a deep sense of the honor extended to me, 
my conclusion is that I cannot accept the proffered appoint- 
ment. With the highest respect for the Institute and its 
Boards of management, and for you personally, I am, my 
dear Sir, 

Yours very truly, 

D. C. Gilman. 
Hon. Augustus Lowell. 



The problem of a new President for Yale, after the resig- 
nation of President Dwight, was of a very different charac- 
ter from that presented at the Massachusetts Institute, and 
it will certainly be surprising to many people to learn that 
Mr. Gilman was even so much as thought of, at his then 
age, for that peculiar post. While the Massachusetts prop- 
osition presented itself in the shape of a positive call, Mr. 
Gilman's age naturally enough prevented the Yale proposal 
from going beyond the stage of suggestion. The corre- 
spondence, however, is not without interest : 

Germantown, Philada., Pa., 

Nov. 24, 1898. 

Dear President Gilman : 

Would you permit your name to be considered as a can- 
didate for the Presidency of Yale? 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 303 

The accepted resignation of President Dwight has devel- 
oped a grave crisis in our affairs. I do not know of any one 
who is so admirably qualified for the position as yourself. 

I will hold your frank reply as confidential, if you will 
allow me to do so. 

Sincerely yours, 

Burdett Hart. 



Nov. 26, 1898. 
My dear Dr. Hart : 

Your question surprises and confuses me. If it is only the 
utterance of an old friend, I beg you to say no more. Do 
nothing to lead me into the domain of anxieties and perplex- 
ties. If you speak as the Senior member of the Corpora- 
tion, I should feel bound to give the most careful considera- 
tion, before replying definitely. I may say on the moment, 
that I am happy in my present life, and have no desire to 
change it; and also, that you cannot expect me to become a 
candidate for the high and honorable position to which your 
letter alludes, in any sense that would imply an effort, on the 
part of my friends, or on my own part, to secure the consid- 
eration of my name. I write to you in the freedom of per- 
sonal friendship ; but I see no reason why you should regard 
this note as confidential, if you have any reason to com- 
municate it to any of your colleagues. 

Yours with high regard, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

Rev'd Dr. B. Hart. 

Germantown, Nov. 28, 1898. 

Dear President Gilman: 

I thank you for your frank and cordial letter. I wrote for 
myself and without conference with others. At our meeting 
when Pres. Dwight resigned the members of the corpora- 
tion seemed dazed and no one had a name to present for the 
succession. We have been thinking since that. I thought 
of you immediately and have thought of no one else for the 
place. If the way should be open it will please me to pre- 
sent your name for suffrage. To me you seem the ideal man 



304 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

for the position. Some may think you are too old. Are you 
willing in the freedom of friendship to tell me what your 
age is? I will regard it as private if you desire it. 

Replying to a letter from Judge , who did not 

feel able to name a man, I asked him what he would think 
of President Gilman. And he replied on Nov. 26th, " I con- 
sider President Gilman the best of all the candidates named 
except for the fact that he is so near 70." That is a matter 
beyond human power to change. It is not a factor of deci- 
sion. I do not propose to go any further than you kindly 
allow me to go in this matter. 

Other names may be presented, but so far I do not know 
of any persons who are even seriously talked of. 
With cordial regard 

Sincerely Yours, 

Burdett Hart. 

A fall has caused my writing to be almost illegible. 



Nov. 29, 1898. 
My dear Dr. Hart : 

In reply to your enquiry, — I have no wish to conceal the 
fact that I was born in Norwich, Conn., July 6, 1 83 1 , — and 
allow me to add that I prize most highly the expression of 
your personal regard and that which you have been so kind 
as to quote. 

With sincere regard, 

Yours truly, 

D. C. Gilman. 
Rev. B. Hart, D.D. 

New Haven, Dec. 28, 1898. 
Dear President Gilman : 

I have not done what I should have done earlier: but the 
work has been so crowded and anxious that you must par- 
don me. I presented your name to the Corporation, and I 
am certain you would have had unanimous election if you 
were a younger man : perhaps you would yet receive it if 
I were free to say that you would certainly accept the ap- 
pointment were it unanimously tendered. I cannot ask you 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 305 

to permit me to go as far as that; but I devoutly wish I 
could say it. 

Dear friend, we are in a place of great perplexity. Can 
you name a man for the high and responsible place? 

I would like to say more to you, but will only add that 
I shall return to Philada. this week, probably on Friday. 

I must say one thing more : Some men say President 
Dwight would consider it a reflection on himself, his deci- 
sion, if one so nearly of his own age should be appointed to 
succeed him. I do not agree with them. 

Sincerely & affectionately yours 

Burdett Hart. 

D. C. G. to Rev. Burdett Hart, December 29, 1898. 

Your letter of yesterday contains such expressions of con- 
fidence and good will that I hasten to return my grateful 
acknowledgments, especially for adding that you cannot ask 
me to tell you what I would do under certain circumstances. 
You make the situation clear and have my sympathy in 
these perplexities, — but I do not see how I can throw any 
light upon the problem. I have no doubt that the decision 
will be wise at which you and your colleagues arrive. 



Of the internal history of the University after its charac- 
ter had been established, this biographical volume is not 
the place to speak. There was nothing in the nature of 
marked change, nothing that required a choice between 
conflicting policies or the decision of any crucial question. 
Nor was the external history of the Johns Hopkins marked 
by events or vicissitudes that call for mention, aside from 
two circumstances which played a considerable part in the 
development of affairs. One of these was the controversy 
relating to the site of the University; the other the im- 
pairment of its funds through the decline in value and 
productive power of the stock of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad, which constituted its chief holdings. Sentiment 



306 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

was strongly stirred up in Baltimore over the question of 
the permanent location of the University at Clifton, the 
country-seat of Johns Hopkins just outside the city limits. 
The majority of the Board of Trustees decided against the 
removal of the University from what were at first supposed 
to be its temporary quarters in the heart of the city to Clif- 
ton at any assigned time. In coming to this conclusion they 
were guided by what they believed to be the best interests 
of the University and by the conviction that, as the will of 
the founder had not expressly directed that Clifton should 
be the site, it was not only their right but their duty to act 
in the matter solely upon their judgment of what was best 
for the University; while a minority of the Board took the 
ground not only that Clifton was in itself desirable, but that, 
aside from their judgment of the case, the Trustees were 
under a moral obligation to respect the wishes and expecta- 
tions of the founder as expressed in conversation during his 
lifetime, or as indicated by other evidence. In the com- 
munity at large there existed a like division of sentiment; 
and the controversy was unfortunate, no doubt, in its effect 
upon the disposition of many wealthy citizens of Baltimore 
to aid the University. Within the Board the matter was 
forced to a crisis in the winter of 1881-82 by the aggressive 
attitude of one of the members who insisted upon Clifton. 
There is the less occasion for going any further into this 
matter that Mr. Gilman was confined to his house by a long 
illness during the entire period of the discussion in the Board 
of Trustees, of which, moreover, the President of the Uni- 
versity was not, at that time, a member; it happens, there- 
fore, that his name cannot be associated with either side of 
the controversy. 

When the Johns Hopkins University was founded, its 
endowment, valued at three and a half million dollars, — 
the largest that had ever been given at one stroke to any 



/ 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 307 

institution of learning by private munificence — impressed 
the imagination of everybody as promising to the new insti- 
tution a most prosperous future. To the mind of President 
Gilman, as of others who really knew the needs of a great 
university, the endowment, ample as it was, did not present 
itself as one that would require no supplementing; but it 
did place him in a condition of ease, and of freedom from 
anxiety, so far as the prospects of the early years of 
the University were concerned. While always ready and 
anxious to avail himself of proper opportunities for the aug- 
mentation of the University's resources, it was not in his 
nature to beat up such opportunities or to employ the arts 
in which some men are so skillful to make the most of them. 
It was fortunate for him and for the University that all 
considerations of this kind were absent from the thoughts 
of himself and of the Trustees in the initial stages of the 
work established at Baltimore. The ardors and the aspira- 
tions of those early years were not sicklied o'er with the pale 
cast of any thoughts of money-getting. And it is pleasant 
to be able to recall that even when financial trouble came 
and could not be ignored, and up to the time when down- 
right necessity absolutely forced the question of the ex- 
chequer to the front, the University kept on its way serenely, 
paying as little regard to the money question as was con- 
sistent with the possibility of making the two ends meet. 

But financial disappointment did come early, bringing 
with it difficulties that had to be faced. The founder had 
left the bulk of the University's endowment in the form of 
common stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and 
almost the only specific recommendation made to the Trus- 
tees in his will was an injunction, so emphatic as almost to 
amount to a mandate, that the University should not part 
with its holdings of this stock. When, not many years after 
the founding of the University, the Baltimore and Ohio 



3 o8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

suspended dividends on the common stock for a series of 
years, it may readily be understood how serious was the 
anxiety that this produced. The surplus accumulated in 
preceding years enabled the University to go on for a long 
time without appealing for aid; but in 1889 an emergency 
fund of somewhat more than $100,000 was subscribed, 
twenty persons making contributions of five thousand dol- 
lars each. Mr. Gilman was himself the first subscriber. 
The Baltimore and Ohio soon resumed payment of divi- 
dends, but the revenue was far less than it had been in the 
early years, the road went through many vicissitudes, in- 
cluding a receivership, and ultimately the University^ hold- 
ings in this stock were sold for an amount far below their 
value at the time of its foundation. At a time when the 
situation thus created was pressing hard upon the Univer- 
sity, an incident relating to President Gilman personally 
gave rise to a movement which resulted in the immediate 
raising of a Relief Fund of $250,000, subscribed by a large 
number of representative citizens of Baltimore. The inci- 
dent referred to was the proposal of his name, in 1896, for 
the superintendency of the public schools of New York 
City. 

In order to understand the situation created by this 
proposal it is necessary to remember that " Greater New 
York " was then just about to come into existence, and that 
the best minds and finest spirits of the great city were 
keenly alive to the possibility of a new and higher future 
for it. The thought of infusing into the management of its 
public schools at once the highest purpose and preeminent 
knowledge and ability opened up to such men possibilities 
of benefit for the present and the future — for New York 
itself and for the whole country — quite beyond computa- 
tion. It was felt in Baltimore by those who knew what 
Mr. Gilman really was that a mere superficial comparison 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 309 

of the dignity of the two offices would not stand in the way 
of his measuring the true greatness of the opportunity pre- 
sented in New York; and they accordingly realized at once 
the possibility that the University might suffer at this criti- 
cal moment the irreparable loss of President Gilman's de- 
parture. On all sides protests arose against his acceptance 
of the New York offer; and it was naturally felt in many 
quarters that any effort to retain him ought to be accom- 
panied by the raising of a fund at least sufficient to relieve 
the University of embarrassment in the near future. One 
of the Baltimore newspapers devoted a long editorial to 
the setting forth of the situation as affecting Mr. Gilman 
and as affecting the University, in the course of which it 
said: 

Simultaneously with the great extension of the limits of 
New York City, an educational law has been enacted which 
was designed, and is expected, to lead to the placing of her 
public school system on a new and vastly better footing. 
Above all else a great organizer, with strong opinions upon 
educational questions, and intensely interested in promoting 
the common welfare, he [President Gilman] cannot fail to 
see in the present exceptional condition of affairs in New 
York a field at once for the exercise of his highest powers 
and for making them productive in an extraordinary degree 
of results beneficial to millions of his countrymen, in this and 
subsequent generations. Though in his sixty-fifth year, Mr. 
Gilman has all the vigor and aggressiveness of early man- 
hood, and where most men would view only the enormous 
difficulties of the situation, he is filled with the inspiration 
of its great possibilities. ... If the New York opening 
should prove to offer such an opportunity for great work as 
seems possible, the one thing that would keep President Gil- 
man here would be the assurance that the wealthy men of 
Baltimore will not allow the work of the University to be 
impaired for want of means, and that they will see to it that 
the pre-eminence it had so fairly earned shall not be entirely 
forfeited. 



310 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

A meeting was promptly held with a view to raising a 
relief fund of $250,000. Nearly $150,000 was subscribed 
on the spot, in amounts ranging from $500 to $20,000; and 
the entire fund was subscribed within a few days. It need 
hardly be said that meetings of the Alumni, of the Faculty, 
and of the Trustees were held within a very few days of the 
receipt of the news that there was danger of the University 
losing the President who had made it what it was; and in 
the face of the attitude of all these bodies, Mr. Gilman 
found it absolutely impossible to leave. How real a con- 
flict was created in his mind by the pressure of the New 
York situation will be made sufficiently apparent in the 
letters reproduced further on; and while the pressure 
brought to bear on him in Baltimore can easily be imagined 
without the adducing of any instances, the state of the case 
and of President Gilman's mind may to some extent be in- 
dicated by the following letter and reply: 

Johns Hopkins University, 
Baltimore, Md., May 23, 1896. 

President Daniel C. Gilman. 
Dear Sir: 

At a meeting of the officers of instruction of the Johns 
Hopkins University held this morning, at which it is be- 
lieved that every member of the teaching staff in the city 
at the time was present, the undersigned were appointed a 
Committee to convey to you an expression of the feelings of 
the entire academic body in view of the possibility of your 
withdrawal from the office of President of the University. 

We are aware that the question now before you is one 
involving such grave public interests that personal consider- 
ations can be allowed little weight in its determination, and 
we do not desire to urge this aspect of the case. We do not 
need to assure you of the earnest and unanimous desire of 
those who have worked so contentedly and harmoniously 
under your direction for a continuance of these delightful 
and most helpful relations, and you well know with what 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 31 1 

painful regret we should witness the severing of these 
ties. 

The point which we wish chiefly to emphasize is the effect 
of your retirement upon the welfare of the University. As 
its first and only President, you occupy a relation to this insti- 
tution such as is rarely paralleled: its organization and the 
development of its distinctive features are mainly due to 
you. It is, moreover, seldom that the head of an institution 
of learning is connected in such intimate and varied ways 
with the life of a community as you are connected with the 
life of the city of Baltimore. The singular harmony and 
good-will which have prevailed among all associated in the 
work of the University are eminently due to your influence. 
For these and many other reasons, we feel that your with- 
drawal under any circumstances would be a serious calamity. 
But under the peculiar conditions at present existing, and in 
view of the interpretation likely to be put upon such action 
by persons at a distance, we feel that your retirement would 
be attended by consequences which we cannot permit our- 
selves to contemplate. 

We do not depreciate the importance and attractiveness 
of the position to which you have been so urgently invited, 
but, in consideration of the interests of the University so im- 
mediately dependent upon you, we most earnestly hope that 
you may see it to be your duty to remain in the place which 
you have filled with such distinction. We need not tell you 
what confidence and enthusiasm in respect to the future such 
a determination on your part would inspire in us all. 

Ira Remsen. 

Henry M. Htjrd. 

Edward H. Griffin. 

H. B. Adams. 

James W. Bright. 

Baltimore, May 28, 1896. 

To Professor Remsen, Chairman, and to the Committee 
of the Faculty, and to those whom they represented: 
I cannot express to you, except by continued devotion to 
the interests of the University, my appreciation of the kind- 



3 i2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ness with which you have remonstrated against my possible 
departure from the post that I now hold. Even those of 
you who have had glimpses of the letters and telegrams that 
have recently come to me, can form but a partial idea of 
the pressure to which I have been subjected. I am thankful 
that by your action and that of the Trustees, kindly sup- 
ported by the Committee of our Alumni, I have been relieved 
from deciding this question upon my own judgment alone. 
I am delighted to foresee that with renewed courage and 
with an unbroken front we are about to enter upon the next 
decade of our associated work. 

I could receive no greater reward than the assurance that 
those with whom I have lived and worked day by day for 
twenty years still wish me to remain with them, and that 
they are so devoted and so willing to bear the stress under 
which the University is now placed. 

The public action that has been taken since your meeting 
is a guarantee of immediate relief, and I hope that it is 
also the earnest of future legacies and of additions to our 
capital. 

It has given me pain for years past, from time to time, 
to perceive how much many of you are fettered in your 
official duties because of the inadequate funds at the control 
of the Trustees. It is a common remark among college men 
that our outlay is very small in proportion to the work that 
is here done. The reputation of this University is due, in 
many cases, to self-denial on your part, and it deserves, as 
I hope it will receive, the recognition of the community. 
I remain, in the future as in the past, 

Your friend and servant, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

As an incident in Mr. Gilman's life, however, the con- 
nection of this call to New York with the affairs of the 
Johns Hopkins University is of incomparably less interest 
than is the New York side of it. That a man who had 
nearly completed his sixty-fifth year should be called away 
from the sphere of university work to which his whole life 
had been devoted, to undertake the reorganization of a 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 313 

vast system of popular education in a city presenting the 
extraordinary complexities that exist in the huge metropolis 
of our country, is remarkable enough. But this does not 
begin to tell the story. It was not merely a question of 
organization or reorganization; it was a question, in addi- 
tion to this, of infusing new life and new virtue into the 
whole educational system, — such new life and new virtue 
as it was hoped by the best citizens of New York would 
affect the whole future of the city, not only through its influ- 
ence on successive generations of children and young people, 
but through the infection of its example in all departments 
of public life. How strongly this feeling was manifested, 
how insistently it was brought to bear on Mr. Gilman him- 
self, can only be seen by an examination of the letters that 
he received at this time and of the files of the New York 
newspapers. It was characteristic of Mr. Gilman's habitual 
reserve that not even those who were most interested, and 
who might be supposed to know all the circumstances of the 
situation, had any idea of the intensity of this pressure. 
A few letters may be quoted here to show the kind of appeal 
that was made to him: 

Columbia University, 
President's Room, May 22d, 1896. 
My dear Mr. Gilman : 

I telegraphed you this morning after hearing Dr. Peas- 
ley's report. I am in receipt of your reply suggesting that 
I defer coming until I receive a letter to-morrow morning. 
Naturally, I comply with your request. 

I send this hurried line to impress upon you the impor- 
tance of doing nothing and saying nothing that will make 
it impossible for you to come to New York. I have no 
doubt that every difficulty in the way at this end of the line 
can be dealt with easily and effectually. That you will be 
obliged to withstand tremendous pressure from Baltimore 
I can readily appreciate. What I want to lay before you 
now as earnestly as possible is this ; — that, having con- 



3 i4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

sented to the use of your name, I do not think you are any 
longer free to decline an appointment, if tendered to you 
upon conditions that you are justified in accepting. I have 
given three days of my time to this matter, and I am only 
one of many citizens who have put forth all the influence 
that they possess to bring about your appointment. No one, 
of course, has pledged you to acceptance, for that naturally 
could not be expected of you in the abstract. On the other 
hand, by permitting the use of your name, a situation has 
grown up which, in my judgment, will constrain you to accept 
if the incidental conditions of the appointment are such as 
to justify it. I believe, also, that the opportunity for useful- 
ness is worthy of you and that you are worthy of it. All 
of this I think I could make much more clear in an inter- 
view. I write this letter in order to make impossible, so far 
as I can and if need be, the unspeakable catastrophe of your 
withdrawing your name or of making pledges to the Balti- 
more people that foreclose the question, without such an 
understanding on your part of the situation in New York as 
I think I have it in my power to give to you. 

Awaiting your letter, and anticipating your election under 
conditions entirely welcome to yourself, unless you yourself 
make it impossible, 

I am, as always, 

Yours faithfully, 

Seth Low. 

City of New York, 
Office of the Mayor, 

May 22nd, 1896. 
Hon. Daniel C. Gilman, 

New York City. 
Dear Sir: 

Should you consent to accept the position of City Super- 
intendent of the Schools of New York, to which I am confi- 
dent you will be elected next Thursday, permit me to say 
that so far as lies in my power you will have the support of 
the Administration in carrying out the great work for which 
you are so eminently qualified. 

Further than that, I wish to assure you that vacancies in 
the Board of Education will be filled only after consulta- 






PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 315 

tion with, and with the advice of men in whom you will have 
implicit confidence. 

Let me assure you that I am so thoroughly interested in 
carrying out this great work, and co-operating with you, 
that you may be assured that you willl have my hearty co- 
operation during the balance of my term of office, which 
extends until the first of January, 1898. 

Trusting that our efforts may be successful in this enter- 
prise, I have the honor to remain, 

Very sincerely yours, 

W. L. Strong, 

Mayor. 



102 East Thirtieth Street, 
19 May. 
My dear Mr. Gilman: 

The news which Dr. Butler brings of the possibility of 
your coming to New York as Superintendent of the schools 
warms the very cockles of my heart. I am rejoiced and 
elated beyond expression, and not I only, but all of those 
who have been fighting for school reform for all these years. 
With the prospect of you at the head of the schools I feel 
that the millennium is near — and not without some reason, 
for the intelligent public opinion which has been aroused 
and developed during the past years is of sufficient force to 
work a veritable renaissance if properly guided, and we only 
need a leader. With you and President Low working to- 
gether the whole educational system of the city can be co- 
ordinated and perfected and raised to a level which even 
Germany has not attained. You will have public confidence 
and support to an unlimited degree, and the belief which 
everyone will have in your success will go far to make it 
certain. And such an opportunity has never before been 
offered, for pending the organization of the Greater New 
York, we are in a formative condition and the time is ripe 
for the development of a system of public education on the 
broadest and highest lines. I cannot imagine a greater pub- 
lic service than that which you will render, for it is not only 
vast in its immediate conception and operation but it will 



316 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

extend to all parts of the country and its influence will be 
effectual for all time. Even the invaluable service which 
you have rendered to higher education is small in com- 
parison to the service which you may now render through 
our common schools. They may be made the means of re- 
storing municipal government to a safe and healthy condi- 
tion, of removing the greatest danger which threatens the 
body politic, and the man who can make the schools what 
they should be — the nursery of good citizenship — will 
earn the gratitude of all posterity. When the time and the 
man are met all things are possible; this is the time and you 
are the man. 

Faithfully yours, 

John B. Pine. 

When the suggestion was first made, Mr. Gilman was 
asked to permit the use of his name with no further promise 
than that, if chosen, he would give the matter serious con- 
sideration. At the first meeting of the Board of Educa- 
tion, as was very natural, opposition was developed by the 
adherents of the old regime; and in the week that inter- 
vened before the next meeting ample time was furnished 
for the protest of Baltimore to make head. Although Mr. 
Gilman had not at all committed himself, it is not surprising 
that when he found it impossible to leave his post at Balti- 
more, those who had been working for the great result 
which they felt to be bound up with his acceptance of the 
New York office felt deeply disappointed. To explain his 
relation to the proposal Mr. Gilman, after having asked 
that his name be withdrawn, sent to the New York Board 
of Education the following statement: 

On Monday of last week, May 18th, I received a friendly, 
unofficial request that I would allow my name to be pre- 
sented to the consideration of the Board of Education in 
the city of New York, for the office of Superintendent of 
Schools. The suggestion took me absolutely by surprise; 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 317 

but it was presented in such a way that I did not see how 
I could say " no." It was made apparent to me that the 
position referred to is, to-day, one of the most important 
positions, if not the most important, in American education. 
I still think so, and for these reasons. 

The great city, soon to be " Greater New York," with 
its enormous outlays for schools, has secured, through the 
influence of a Committee of one hundred representative citi- 
zens, a new law permitting, in many respects, the re-organi- 
zation of its system of public instruction. An opportunity 
like this for the introduction of modern methods, adapted to 
the requirements of all classes in the community, has never, 
so far as I am aware, occurred before. I should consider it 
a privilege and an honor to take a responsible part in a work 
of such magnitude and of such far-reaching influences, for 
surely the improvement of schools in the metropolis would 
be for the advantage of the whole country and the whole 
world. The studies and observations of a life devoted to 
the advancement of education could not be directed to a 
nobler object. 

Among the problems that are now of paramount interest 
is the permanent separation of the public school system from 
the influences of parties, sects, and personal preferments. 
Again there is the world-wide question of our times — how 
can old methods of instruction be improved, and the training 
of the eye and hand be secured without the neglect of the 
printed page? How may morality and patriotism be pro- 
moted in schools that are governed by local self-government 
and are free from the control of all religious bodies? Plow 
may the different requirements of such diverse elements as 
constitute the population of a cosmopolitan city be wisely 
and economically supplied? What is the proper training for 
public school teachers? These and other problems will be 
solved in New York, primarily for its own advantage, but 
likewise also as an example to every other city of the land. 

Such considerations led me to consent to the presentation 
of my name last Wednesday; no election followed, and 
action was postponed for a week and a day. In the interval 
that has followed, remonstrances, far stronger than I fore- 
saw, have been made against my acceptance of the post. 



3 i8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

This resistance culminated in the action of the authorities 
of the University, who informed me last Saturday, officially, 
in explicit terms, that my departure at this time from the 
post that I hold, would be regarded by them as " a calam- 
ity," and that I would " not be permitted to leave " this insti- 
tution. This action was made public at once. Under these 
circumstances, it is my final and deliberate request that no 
further consideration be given to my nomination, and that 
my friends do not present my name. 

No fear of work, no question of compensation, no dread 
of interference has affected a decision which is reached on 
grounds of public duty alone. 

I ask leave to add an expression of gratitude to those who 
have advocated my appointment. I cannot tell them how 
much I value the honor. I would also express my admira- 
tion for the attitude of the journals of New York, which 
have stood as a united column for the improvement and ad- 
vancement of the public school system, with suggestions that 
are full of promise for the future. In my belief, the pros- 
perity of this country, material, intellectual and moral, de- 
pends upon the wisdom with which the public schools are 
maintained. When all the best forces of the metropolis are 
united for this end, hope and courage will everywhere 
prevail. 

Daniel C. Gilman. 

Baltimore, May 27, 1896. 

There can be little doubt that the conflicting claims 
which Mr. Gilman was called upon to weigh against each 
other during this week of May, 1896, presented to his mind 
a degree of perplexity such as no other situation of his life 
ever produced; and while his final decision was really in- 
evitable in view of all the facts, he must yet have felt that 
in declining the New York call he was missing a unique op- 
portunity for such signal service as it had always been the 
aim of his life to render. But, however free he was from 
vanity — and few men have been more so — the episode 
can hardly have failed to give him deep satisfaction as a 



PRESIDENCY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 319 

recognition of the extraordinary ability and fidelity of his 
life-long service to the cause of education and to the public 
good. It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive 
tribute to the highest qualities of an organizer of education 
and a worker for the upbuilding of public character and 
public ideals than this urgent appeal to a man who had 
almost reached the time for laying down all burdens, that 
he should assume this great task as the man best qualified 
in the whole country to carry it to a triumphant conclusion. 



CHAPTER VI 

SOME LETTERS 

In devoting a chapter to selections from Mr. Gilman's cor- 
respondence, it seems necessary to make some kind of ex- 
planation of the principle on which the selection was made. 
But it really can hardly be said to have been made on any 
plan. So far as regards letters written by Mr. Gilman, there 
will be found in this chapter scarcely any except those taken 
from his correspondence with his life-long friend, Andrew 
D. White; and this partly because Mr. Gilman was not 
specially a cultivator of the art of letter writing, and partly 
because the great mass of letters preserved in Mr. Gilman's 
files seem to present more opportunity, considering the limi- 
tations of space, for a reflection of his many-sided life than 
would have been likely to be afforded by the result of a 
systematic endeavor to collect letters from him which might 
have been preserved by his correspondents. As to the 
selection here made from among the vast number of letters 
in Mr. Gilman's collection, it would be difficult to indicate 
any principle that has governed it. In a general way the 
object in view has been to give such glimpses of events and 
personalities with which Mr. Gilman's life was connected 
as might in a way heighten the feeling of reality, and give 
suggestions of variety and richness that are difficult to con- 
vey in explicit narrative. Many of the letters are given 
because of the personal feelings or personal relations that 
they bring out; in some instances the interest of the letter 
lies chiefly in the writer or in the time; in others the letter 
as such is its own justification; and in still others the motive 
was simply to add variety. In short, any systematic plan 



SOME LETTERS 321 

of sifting the correspondence would have led to a very dif- 
ferent result; but it is hoped that a certain irresponsibility 
in making the choice will have better conduced to the pur- 
pose — that of contributing to the picture of Mr. Gilman's 
life — than a more orderly and systematic procedure would 
have done. 

Of all of Mr. Gilman's many and enduring friendships, 
the strongest and most pervading one, from his college days 
to the close of his life, was that with Andrew D. White. 
A few of the letters that passed between these two attached 
friends and ardent fellow-workers will be given presently; 
but first it will be interesting to give some of Mr. White's 
recollections of Mr. Gilman as presented by two letters writ- 
ten by him to Mrs. Gilman in response to a request from 
her for some reminiscences of the life-long association of the 
two friends. The first is dated Ithaca, May 3, 1909, and 
is as follows: 

I first saw Daniel just after my entrance at Yale in 1 851, 
he being then a member of the Junior class and I a Sopho- 
more. It was in the Linonian Society, which was then in 
all its glory, — the oldest and probably the best debating 
club in the United States. I was at the time awaiting the 
beginning of a debate with fear and trembling, for it was 
my first appearance in anything of the kind at Yale, and my 
anxiety was aggravated by the distress of a Freshman near 
me who also was to take part and who, as he rose to speak, 
was so nervous as to arouse the compassion of the whole 
audience. But just then there entered the room a committee 
to make a report, and as the matter was one of special priv- 
ilege, the report was made at once. The chairman was 
announced as " Mr. Gilman." Large, quiet, kindly, entirely 
given to the business in hand, and without the slightest em- 
barrassment in addressing the assembly, his appearance 
drew me at once out of my distress, both for myself and for 
the Freshman. All else was forgotten in my admiration for 
this member of the Junior class, and I at once conceived a 



322 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

boyish admiration for him. He seemed to me a natural 
leader of men, earnest, sincere, vigorous, entering into the 
business in hand as a master. When the debate was resumed 
his presence seemed to have exercised a happy influence. 
There was diffused a better feeling: — an atmosphere in 
which I got through my own part of the discussion more 
easily than I had expected, and the Freshman made a good 
beginning of a series of discussions in which he rapidly im- 
proved and during which he began a career which was to 
end, years afterward, in the governorship of the state. 

From time to time I saw Daniel, but the distinctions be- 
tween classes at Yale were in those days closely drawn; so 
that, glad as I would have been to make his acquaintance, 
no path seemed open to it, until about a year later. Then 
it was that as editor of the Yale Literary Magazine, he came 
to announce that the committee on its prize medal had 
awarded it to me. Conversation followed; and so began 
our warm personal friendship, continued through my college 
course, through our Russian attacheship which followed it, 
when we went together to Europe, and since those days dur- 
ing more than fifty years, at home and abroad, — our last 
meeting being at Rome last May, when the old relations 
were renewed, in all the heartiness of our student days. 

It was shortly after our arrival in England in 1854 that 
occurred the other incident regarding which you ask. The 
Minister of the United States to Russia, Governor Seymour 
of Connecticut, had been at the last moment detained in 
America, so that we, as his attaches, awaited his coming 
for some time in London. I gave myself up entirely to the 
usual round of sightseeing, but Daniel took his duties far 
more seriously, his main interest being in education and es- 
pecially in its development among the poorer classes. This 
brought him into relations with some very prominent men, 
among them Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, with the result 
that they invited him to make one of the addresses at a mass 
meeting to be held at Manchester in behalf of a better school 
system. On the day appointed we went to Manchester to- 
gether. Arriving at the station we separated, he going with 
his new-found friends, and I making my way at once to Free 
Trade Hall, where I found an immense assembly, but was 



SOME LETTERS 323 

fortunate enough to secure one of the front seats in the gal- 
lery, not far from the stage. Looking about me over this 
great audience, I saw but one person I had ever seen before 
and recognized him on account of his color. He was Sam- 
uel R. Ward, famous throughout the state of New York as 
a negro preacher who had recently gained much applause 
in an abolition debate in New York. I noted too that next 
Mr. Ward sat a large, impressive looking gentleman in 
Quaker garb. Presently the speakers arrived, and, after 
eloquent adresses from Cobden and Bright, the chairman 
introduced " an American who has given special attention to 
the subject of public schools in the United States: — Mr. 
Gilman." To my great joy the young orator was received 
most heartily by the entire audience and at once launched 
into an admirable speech. He had made several points 
perfectly, and my pride in him was steadily rising, when, 
having alluded to the school system in our Northern states 
as free to all alike, he was interrupted. I had noted that 
Mr. Ward just at that moment said something to his Quaker 
neighbor, who thereupon rose and asked permission to put 
a question to the speaker. I knew instinctively what the 
question was to be, and in spite of my sympathy for the col- 
ored race felt a strong wish that Providence would then and 
there put an immediate end to the activity of the Reverend 
Mr. Ward. Out came the fatal query, in tones most benig- 
nant and bland, as follows: " Do I understand the gentle- 
man to say that in the public schools of the American states 
free education is given alike to all children? " 

" Certainly, Sir," said Daniel. 

To this the Quaker rejoined, " Does the gentleman state 
that such education is given to white and black children 
alike?" 

Now came a catastrophe. Daniel was obliged to ex- 
plain, and anything like an explanation on that question and 
to that audience was deadly. The John Bull hatred of 
slavery was dominant at once. There were calls of Yah! 
yah! yah! (Hear! hear! hear!) with other cries of deri- 
sion which caused a long interruption, but the chairman of 
the meeting, with Messrs. Cobden and Bright, having ap- 
pealed to the feeling for British fair play, the tumult after 



324 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

a time subsided and the speech was finished. Daniel bore 
himself admirably. At no time did he seem discouraged 
or dismayed. He quietly held his ground, made the expla- 
nation as well as was possible under the circumstances, and 
when he finished was treated with a fair amount of cour- 
tesy. He felt the interruption evidently much less than I 
did, and it abated not one jot of his earnestness in his fur- 
ther efforts in connection with Messrs. Cobden and Bright, 
who showed in various ways their high appreciation of him. 

He already showed, even then, that straightforward 
earnestness and devotion to the public interest, which be- 
came more and more during his after life so marked a fea- 
ture of his activity. 

There were various striking evidences of this quality in 
him during the years that followed, and one which impressed 
me especially was his effort for technical education at the 
Sheffield Scientific School. He had come into Central New 
York, where I then was, and had discussed with a small 
party of gentlemen whom I brought together the claims of 
education in the arts and sciences relating to the great in- 
dustries of our country. Up to that time the subject had 
never attracted me. Indeed, during my Senior year in col- 
lege I regarded the studies of my contemporaries in the 
Sheffield Scientific School with a sort of contempt, — with 
wonder that human beings possessed of immortal souls 
should waste their time in work with blow pipes and test 
tubes. His argument opened for me new fields of thought, 
and it was to him, more by far than to any other person, 
that was due my interest in technical education at the found- 
ing of Cornell University. 

This reminds me of a circumstance connected with his 
transfer from Berkeley and San Francisco to Baltimore. 
Our University at Ithaca had been established for a few 
years when there appeared one day at my office a deputa- 
tion of trustees from the newly founded Johns Hopkins 
University. Of course I made it my duty to show them 
what we had done at Cornell thus far, taking them espe- 
cially through the library, lecture rooms, laboratories, and, 
above all, the schools of civil and mechanical engineering. 
As we came out of Sibley College and were standing on the 



SOME LETTERS 325 

stone platform from which a few months before Daniel 
had made his admirable address at the opening of that build- 
ing, the chairman of the Johns Hopkins trustees, Judge 
Brown, in the presence of his colleagues, who were standing 
about us, asked me, with some solemnity, whether I knew 
of any person whom I could recommend for the presidency 
of their proposed university at Baltimore. To this ques- 
tion I at once replied that there was one man whom I could 
recommend thoroughly, President Gilman of the Univer- 
sity of California. At this the whole company burst into 
a laugh which greatly disconcerted me; but Judge Brown 
most kindly came to the rescue. He informed me that on 
the same errand which brought them to Ithaca they had first 
visited Cambridge and, after looking through Harvard, 
had asked of President Eliot the same question which they 
had just asked me and had received the same answer which 
I had given; — that they had then visited Yale and, having 
been shown through its main buildings by President Porter, 
had received the same answer from him. Never was an 
answer more conscientiously given and never was expecta- 
tion more completely fulfilled. The success of Dr. Gilman 
as President of Johns Hopkins I have always regarded as 
the most remarkable of its kind achieved during my time. 
I remain, dear Mrs. Gilman, 

Most respectfully and faithfully yours, 

And. D. White. 

In a second letter, written a month later, Mr. White says : 

In the early days of my friendship with him a distinct im- 
pression was made upon me by the fact that whenever in 
Europe I followed him I was sure to find that wherever he 
had made any stay he had left friends who respected and 
admired him. This I noted first when I succeeded him as 
Attache at St. Petersburg, where a number of the best people 
with whom I made acquaintance spoke to me in the highest 
terms regarding him. The same thing I found later when 
I settled down as a student at Berlin. Our Minister at that 
court, the late Governor Vroom of New Jersey, and his 
family, Privy Councillor Pertz, the eminent Historian and 



326 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Director of the Royal Library, the Explorer Lepsius, so re- 
nowned as a university professor and Egyptologist, and 
Professor Carl Ritter of the University, the most distin- 
guished geographer of Europe, were among those who re- 
called him with admiration. 

Very noteworthy was his visit to Berlin during the second 
period of my official life there. As you will remember, he 
then studied, in view of his duties at the Carnegie Institu- 
tion, sundry great establishments in that city and its neigh- 
borhood in order to familiarize himself with various fields 
of scientific observation, and the impression then made by 
him upon the foremost German scholars and, indeed, upon 
leading men of affairs was such as to make me proud of him 
as an American. 

Mention ought to be made of his relations with the Vene- 
zuelan Commission and his work in connection with it in 
1895. The questions which had to be settled by us were 
many and knotty. His experience as a geographical student 
made his work especially valuable, and his influence is to be 
seen throughout the whole fourteen volumes of historical 
and geographical work which the Commission furnished 
to the Arbitration Tribunal at Paris. 

Throughout our whole career in connection with educa- 
tion we were in close sympathy. His life as professor at 
the Sheffield Scientific School, and as President, first, of the 
University of California, and later of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity corresponded during over thirty years with mine at 
the University of Michigan and at Cornell, and though our 
personal meetings, on account of the distance between our 
posts, were, during part of this period, rare, our relations 
remained very close and our intercourse was certainly of 
great value to me. I regard his work at Johns Hopkins as 
peculiarly original and valuable. He rendered a great ser- 
vice by it to every other institution of advanced learning 
throughout the whole country. Two things I especially ad- 
mired in him, — first, his wisdom in discussing new depart- 
ures in education, and secondly, his insight and foresight 
as shown in his nominations to professorships. At various 
times, as notably at the opening of our Sibley College of 
Mechanical Engineering and of the new library building at 



SOME LETTERS 327 

Cornell University, he gave memorable addresses : — mem- 
orable because he discussed living subjects as a master. But 
the best discussions between us were, as the Germans say, 
" under four eyes," when, with the old feeling of mutual 
interest and thorough friendship, we took up in private 
conversation the problems with which we had to grapple. 

As to his career in connection with the Carnegie Institu- 
tion for Research I can say little from direct knowledge, for 
the reason that during his presidency I was absent from 
the country. I can only testify that during the visit above 
referred to, in the interest of that institution, — to the 
various laboratories, lecture rooms and personages foremost 
in German research, — he showed a remarkably just sense of 
the worth of the work to be done and of the main lines to 
be taken in it. 

Our last meeting at Rome during the closing days of 
May last year is to me a precious remembrance. He seemed 
to me as kindly and in every way as delightful as ever, but 
evidently somewhat weary. His mind seemed perfectly 
clear, but I thought him slightly depressed and easily fa- 
tigued. Vividly comes back to me the day passed by us 
together among the more recent excavations in the Roman 
Forum, especially those which had brought to view the 
House of the Vestals. How beautiful appear to me now 
the hours when we all dined together on the twenty-fourth 
of May — he so cheery and kindly, — -sitting under the 
trees in the garden of the Quirinale Hotel during that lovely 
afternoon! He seemed to me as joyous and hearty as in 
our college days, and as much interested in Italian matters 
as at any period in his life. I have a feeling of gratitude 
that those hours — the last we were destined to pass to- 
gether — were in every way so delightful and that they 
deepened the happy impressions made upon me by our col- 
lege life and continued during all the after years. 

I remain most respectfully and sincerely yours, 

And. D. White. 



Before proceeding to the miscellaneous correspondence, 
there is given below a selection from the letters that passed 



328 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

between Mr. Gilman and Mr. White in the course of their 
half-century of friendship : 



New York, October 23, 1873. 
My dear friend: 

Your long letter addressed to me at California reached 
me here unopened last week, but I have not had a quiet hour 
in which to answer it, for since it came I have been in New 
Haven, Cambridge, Easton, Philadelphia, and Princeton. 
I hope to see you soon and talk over all the subjects which 
the letter involves; but some things I am eager to say in 
writing, though I may repeat them orally. I am surprised 
and sorry at what you say of yourself, surprised and pleased 
at what you say of me. I regard your expression of good 
will as the partial estimate of a friendship of twenty years, 
— but I regard it also as one of the most grateful testi- 
monials that I ever received. But, my good friend, I could 
not take your place and fill it. You are so identified with the 
whole life of the University at Ithaca, with its conception, 
development and accomplishments, that stronger men than 
I am might well hesitate about accepting the post if you 
should quit it. You write like one who is tired, who has 
need of the respite which you have fairly earned. You 
ought to be freed from some of the perplexing labors de- 
volved upon you, but you ought to have the opportunity, the 
honor, and the satisfaction for many years to come of guid- 
ing the enterprise which you have created. Why not modify 
the duties of your office so that you become a sort of honor- 
ary Chancellor and put upon somebody else the innumerable 
little things of the Presidential office? Don't think of any 
" successor " for years to come. More leisure you ought 
to have. Your fine literary abilities and your long studies 
in history qualify you to write a work which will live, live as 
long as the University, and I confess that as one of your 
friends I should rejoice in seeing you thus engaged. But is 
not this compatible with continued guidance of the Univer- 
sity? I shall see you soon — so good-bye for the present. 
Ever cordially yours, 

D. C. Gilman. 



SOME LETTERS 329 

Newport, R. I., August 9, 1880. 
My dear friend: 

I have been spending a Sunday here with Mrs. Lieber, 
and the evening was devoted to the examination of Dr. 
Lieber's diaries and correspondence. 

Much as I have known in respect to his public life, and 
much as I have read of his miscellaneous writings, I was 
amazed to learn how much there is on record of that which 
has not been revealed to the outside world, — so much that 
is noble and patriotic and humane on the one hand, so much 
that is racy and entertaining on the other hand in re- 
spect to all that was occurring in the wide field which he 
surveyed. 

Mrs. Lieber told me of her application to you with refer- 
ence to the preparation of a biography, and of your guarded 
response. It occurred to me that if you could see as I have 
done the sources of information, and especially if you could 
see how beautifully the most interesting parts of the material 
have been already selected, translated, transcribed, and 
arranged in large envelopes chronologically by the judg- 
ment and skill of Mrs. Lieber and her younger associates, 
you would feel that the delaying parts of the work were 
already done, and that it was now only necessary to give 
the final form to these memorials, and to portray in a his- 
toric spirit the relation of this remarkable man to the times 
in which he lived. Here for example is his original well 
worn diary kept during the Waterloo campaign, a most 
interesting letter written to his parents from Marseilles 
just as he was going to Greece with a band of compatriots, 
memoranda of his prison life, letters from Niebuhr, Hum- 
boldt, Mittermaier, &c, &c, — perhaps 1000 letters to 
Sumner, a large number of very important letters from 
Horace Binney, beginning with the Dred Scott case and con- 
tinuing through the war. All this is so completely arranged 
that it is very easy for Mrs. Lieber or Miss Wood to lay the 
hand upon whatever paper may be desired. The two vol- 
umes-of miscellaneous writings are nearly through the press. 
They will not contain his manifold letters to the press dur- 
ing our Civil War, — these being reserved for use in the 
biography. With your library at command, with your vig- 



330 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

orous pen, with your historical knowledge, and with your 
sympathy for the sympathies of Dr. Lieber and your ac- 
ceptance of so many of his political principles, I can hardly 
think of any task you can undertake which will compare with 
the preparation of this biography in the pleasure you will 
yourself take, and the good you will do to young men who 
love a free and noble public life, Europeans as well as 
Americans. 

Ever cordially yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

Nantucket, Mass., July 24, 1885. 
My dear friend : 

The papers of course keep us closely informed of all your 
public doings. Last evening just before receiving your note 
of the 20th, I read your letter to the N. Y. Times. To 
your friends, generally, as to me, I presume no such vindica- 
tion was requisite; but " Justice " gave you an opportunity 
which you have seized to put the record of twenty years 
in the most clear and intelligible form. Your statements 
seem to me unanswerable. Two things have impressed me 
strongly in these last weeks : — the absurdity of charging 
those who are called upon to manage an institution with 
carrying out their own views, when they are acting in com- 
plete accordance with their chartered prerogatives; and 
second, the absurd usurpations of a dozen or two alumni, 
arrogating to themselves the selection of a President. 
Vassar alumna? I see are now to follow suit and protest. 
So it will be when Porter gives up; we shall hear from our 
Yale brethren. Eliot is now under fire from the news- 
papers. The fact appears to be that college government 
is in a transition state. We have broken away from the 
restricted notions of the past; we have not yet learned how 
to adjust ourselves to the broader domains in which we are 
now walking. Was it not the first President of Harvard 
who lost his place because he was unsound on Infant Bap- 
tism ? And was it not one of the earliest of Yale rectors who 
was unseated by his leaning toward episcopacy? You have 
had twenty years of official life and come to its close loved. 



SOME LETTERS 331 

honored and retained, by trustees, faculty and students. 
Well done is the plaudit to which you are entitled. 

Ever yours, 

D. C. G. 

Nantucket, Mass., Aug. 1, 1885. 
My dear friend : 

I have just read your speech in nomination of C. K. 
Adams. Again your critics have given you an opportunity 
which you have been quick to seize, and you have had a 
chance to describe your successor as you could not have 
done if he had been elected without opposition. I think 
your speech ought to set at rest forever the insinuations of 
plagiarism. It was very mean to revive them, — when 
he had been already cleared of such charges, — but as they 
were brought into such prominent notice in New York a 
complete refutation was called for. As usual, nobody calls 
on yon without a response. You draw the picture of a 
very competent man. Such a career, endorsed by those who 
have watched it from the beginning, is the best possible 
augury of future success. You are calling one who has been 
tried. All your remarks about " being known " are excel- 
lent. The limitations of fame are so obvious that it is 
strange to see how wide report is valued more than good 
report. I " jumped " to find my own name mentioned, when 
the qualifications of a college president were spoken of. As 
I had read your previous sentences, I had been appalled 
with a consciousness of my own deficiencies. It is so easy 
to form an ideal, or to approve that which others have de- 
lineated, — so very hard to come near to its attainment. 
However my wife says " such allusions from an old friend 
are most gratifying " — and I find myself, as usual, taking 
exactly her view ! . . . 

Baltimore, June 12, 1887. 
My dear friend : 

On my return from Annapolis yesterday, where I had 
been as a member of the Board of Visitors to the U. S. 
Naval Academy, I found the note which Mr. Burr was so 
kind as to send me in your behalf. My impulse was to go 



332 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

to Ithaca at once, after receiving your telegram, — that 
I might be near when the last tributes of affectionate respect 
were shown to that which is mortal, — but I was already 
announced as the one who would address the cadets at their 
graduation, and my absence would have put others to seri- 
ous inconvenience; — so I must in this way express the sym- 
pathy which I would rather show by signs without words. 
How well I remember your wedding and your wedding 
journey, and how often from that day to this in her house 
and in ours, and in various other places, I have met your 
dear wife with ever increasing admiration and regard. My 
sister, Mrs. Thompson, and my wife, who have had even 
better opportunities than I for observing the rare qualities 
of her mind and heart have counted Mrs. White among the 
chosen few who are above all praise. It will be hard indeed 
for you to bear this loss, — but take comfort, my dear 
friend, in the recollection of all the opportunities you have 
shared together, and of all the support she has given you 
in your manifold and arduous duties. Her sweet influence 
will never forsake you, as her sweet smile will never be for- 
gotten. Be assured too that your friends are sorrowing 
with you, and are recalling the tender recollections of one 
who was loved by all who knew her. God be with you, 
dear Andrew, and spare you for many more good services 
to your fellow men. 

Yours with most affectionate sympathy, 

D. C. G. 

Baltimore, March 3, 1888. 
My dear Andrew : 

I have received both your notes from Washington, and 
have only delayed writing to you in the uncertainty whether 
or not I could go with you on a tour southward. I am to 
meet our Ex. Com. this afternoon, and if the hour is favor- 
able I shall consult them, and when I meet you next Wednes- 
day at Mr. Hubbard's I shall be able to report. I will 
not delay, however, the sending of the note herein enclosed, 
which has just come to me from Newport. I went on with 
my wife last week and spent Sunday with her and her sisters, 
leaving her there for a leisure visit. She will come home 



SOME LETTERS 333 

early in the week after next and I cannot go on any long 
journey in the mean while. She and my daughters both miss 
your pleasant company and we all wish we could have a 
few days more from you before you go Northward. I hope 
you are not getting tired with your work. You are often 
in my thoughts and I know how lonely you are even when 
you are most before the public, but your devotion to the 
service of others, and your willingness to spend and be spent 
for their sake, command my constant admiration and I have 
never been so affectionately drawn to you, not even in our 
boyish days, as I have been during our recent intercourse. 
I have been through the same deep waters which you have 
had to enter and my heart goes out to you, all the while, 
in sympathy and love. 

Your old and devoted friend, 

D. C. G. 

Oban, July 22, 1892. 
My dear friend : 

Read the newspaper slip that I enclose, — then hear my 
tale! I could not get a morning paper as I left Balloch, a 
few hours ago, but as we sailed up that most charming of 
lakes, Loch Lomond, — ("we " being " Prue and I ") I 
saw on the deck a newspaper, and with true American zeal, 
I picked it up. It was open and the first words that met my 
eye were " Andrew D. White " ! I read the rest with great 
satisfaction. I hope it is true; I hope that you are pleased, 
and that you mean to accept this new honor. // it is, and 
if you are, and /'/ you want a young attache, fairly well edu- 
cated, married, with a moderate knowledge of French and 
German, and with a slight experience of diplomatic life in 
St. Petersburg, — why, write to me at once and I will give 
you the name and address of your old friend G. My wife 
will not allow me to close without a message of particular 
regards and congratulations from her to you, — and we 
both send our sincere regards to Mrs. White. I hope we 
may meet en route. Our plan is to spend the next two 
months in the British Isles and to sail for N. Y. by the 
Etruria toward the end of September. 

Affectionately yours, 

D. C. G. 



334 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

February i, 1893. 
My dear friend: 

Your welcome letter reached me in due time; but I. have 
had no heart to reply, for a succession of sorrows has be- 
fallen us. First and chief and ineffaceable is the sorrow for 
the death of my eldest sister, the widow of Dr. Joseph P. 
Thompson. She was spared much suffering. Not even the 
anticipation of death disturbed her life-long serenity. A 
slight cold, a few days' confinement to her room, a cheerful 
good-night to her son, the physician with whom she dwelt, 

— and she passed beyond our sight, — one of the brightest, 
most loving and most sympathetic natures that ever walked 
the earth. What kindred natures she has met in heaven! 
Then came the death of President Hayes, who was our 
guest not many weeks ago, and with whom as a Slater 
trustee I have had much to do since he left the presidency. 
Then Phillips Brooks died and the whole country has 
mourned as it has not mourned since the death of Lincoln, 

— everybody feeling " I have lost a friend." There have 
been other deaths of public men and of personal friends 
besides — so that the funeral bell has seemed to be per- 
petually tolling. But the newspapers have made you aware 
of all this and perhaps I ought not to have even made these 
references. . . . 

The foregoing pages, my dear friend, were written many 
days ago, and I have suffered them to lie upon my table for a 
mood of a more cheerful character to come in its turn. . . . 

Your glimpses of life in St. Petersburg awaken many 
delightful memories, and I wish it were possible for me to 
renew them, visually, while you are in a station of so much 
dignity. Please remember me very kindly to Mr. Prince, 
and tell him that on further acquaintance with the friend 
whom I introduced to him in 1854, I can endorse all that 
I then said and add much more of commendation. I should 
also like to be remembered to Mrs. Hutton, of whose pros- 
perous and happy life I am very glad to hear. I wonder 
if her husband is of the Winans connection. There is here 
a Mr. Hutton who belongs to the Winans- Whistler connec- 
tion, at least by marriage. 

Your view over the Neva, and out upon the fortress, I 
can recall without any effort and the looks of our old home 



SOME LETTERS 335 

on the 6th line, Vas. Ostroff. Tell Mrs. White that she 
would not have escaped winter, if she had remained in this 
country. We have had since Christmas continued and 
severe storms. Mrs. Gilman joins me in a message of the 
kindest regards to you both, and I am 

Ever sincerely yours, 

D. C. Gilman. 
Ending Feb. 25, 1893. 

December 24, 1893. 
Dear Andrew : 

It is a long while ago since you and I arrived at 2 Nor- 
folk St., Strand, on a Christmas Evening and listened to 
those chimes which would not let us sleep and after the 
frugal breakfast of Dickens our host, found our way in the 
morning to Westminster and in the afternoon to St. Paul's. 
How vividly I recall all the scenes. 

You sent me not long ago a reminder from Auerbach's 
cellar and I met Dr. Macgill soon afterwards in New York, 
and now and then we see your name in the papers, — and 
so in one way and another I follow your foreign experiences. 
I wish I could call on you in St. Petersburg ! Hardly any 
of our old acquaintances can be there, — but some I know 
you meet and to such as remember me I should like to send 
a friendly greeting. All goes well and quietly with us here. 

I fancy that you slip away from your diplomatic duties 
to see Mrs. White and your daughters in this holiday time. 
Wherever you may be, let this bear to you and to them the 
sincere regards of 

Your old chum, 

D. C. G. 

January 5, 1896. 
My dear friend: 

Your note of January 3 was awaiting my return from 
Washington last evening. To-day's newspapers contain a 
semi-official account of our brief proceedings yesterday, — 
substantially correct. We have set inquiries agoing for 
rooms, map, and chief clerk, or secretary. Everybody 



336 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

seemed to be in favor of beginning at once our enquiries, 
and I heard no prediction as to when they will end. Nor 
was there any intimation that it would be worth while for 
a member of the Commission to go to Venezuela. I did 
hear it said — but not by any one of our colleagues — that 
the moral effect would be good if some or all the com- 
missioners should go to London, en route for The Hague 
and Madrid in search of the most exact data. It has 
occurred to me that Harrisse, the Columbus researcher, 
would be a keen discoverer of documents hidden in foreign 
archives. I think we should be much strengthened as a 
commission if we could enlist the services as Secretary of 
a man of ability and distinction; but if we cannot, then we 
ought to have a Chief Clerk, of great intelligence and of 
clerical habits and aptitudes. 

What a good fortune brings us together once more ! It 
seems but a little while, just at the icy season of the year, 
that we were with " the Governor " at Queen's Hotel. You 
have ever since been in the diplomatic circle and I have been 
out of it, but now as then, I am 

Sincerely yours, 

D. C. G. 



April 1 6, 1896. 
My dear friend: 

I have just seen your book, and it is what I knew it would 
be, a monument of learning and industry. The preface I 
have read, and I expect to go through both volumes, from 
cover to cover, in the approaching vacation, — unless the 
Venezuelan perplexities engross all our time; and if they 
do, I shall have many a chance to talk over the work with 
you. Most of the articles have come under my eye, as they 
have appeared in their original form, — and I know their 
drift. Probably I lean more than you do toward the side 
of conservative expressions; but I rejoice as heartily and 
as unqualifiedly as you do in the advancement of science 
and in the arrest of bigotry and superstition. It will be 
interesting to watch the reception of your book, and you 
will doubtless meet all sorts of comments commendatory, 



SOME LETTERS 337 

non-committal, controversial. But I do not believe that 
your array of facts can be controverted; and I am sure that 
nothing could be finer or more conciliatory toward those 
who differ from you than your admirable preface. 

Yours most sincerely, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



December 14, 1898. 
My dear friend: 

Our good friend Mr. Gardiner Hubbard was carried to 
the grave yesterday. He died early on Saturday morning, 
after an attack which may have continued for two weeks, 
of acute diabetes; but so far as I can learn he suffered little 
pain, — only intense weariness and weakness. So little 
anxiety was felt about the nearness of his end that within 
two days, I was told, an afternoon reception was given by 
Mrs. Bell for one of his grand-daughters. Twice during 
his illness he dictated notes to us, but we did not see him. 
His incessant and unselfish activities at length were ex- 
hausted and he reached a peaceful end, in his own room, 
at Twin Oaks, surrounded by those most dear to him. 
Within a very few hours before his death he was able to 
drive out. 

The funeral was attended yesterday afternoon at the 
Church of the Covenant opposite his town house, and the 
throng of noteworthy people who were present indicated 
the variety and breadth of his associations. It is a deep 
personal loss to me, like that of a dear kinsman, and I am 
sure you have for his memory the same affectionate regard 
that I entertain. 

With Christmas greetings to Mrs. White and you, 

Ever yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

North-east Harbor, Maine, 
July 6, 1899. 

My dear friend : 

We watch your doings day by day, — always with admi- 
ration, rarely with more pleasure than we have to-day in 



338 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 






reading of your doings at Delft on the Fourth of July. 
The thought was a fine one, — to lay a wreath upon the 
tomb of Grotius, and how admirably the thought has been 
carried into history. You were the very one, among all our 
countrymen, to propose such a demonstration and to see it 
made complete. The papers give us but " a suggestion " 
of your address, but we shall have it all, I trust, in a pam- 
phlet form. It would have repaid me for a voyage to 
Europe to hear your voice, on such a site, on such a day, on 
such a theme ! 

Please give our kindest regards to Mrs. White and to 
Mr. and Mrs. Low. 

Always faithfully yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

June 4, 1901. 
My dear friend: 

Your note surprised and delighted me. No better state- 
ment could be made of the possibilities in Washington. Not 
a word of alteration or omission is called for. 

Of course you can count upon my cooperation to the 
utmost of my powers. . . . 

Curiously enough a Board of Trustees has been instituted 
in Washington to promote the opening of the museums, 
libraries, etc. to students, and yesterday I was made chief 
officer of the Board. There are no funds, buildings, regu- 
lations or laws, — only ideas to be worked out. The move- 
ment, which has the approval of capital men in Washing- 
ton and throughout the country, can, I think, be brought into 
great service, — but just how, I do not yet see. 

My wife and I are going to N. E. Harbor, toward the 
end of June, and have had no plans for going abroad. 
When we met our friend last winter he invited us to come 
and make him a visit, but nothing was said as to time. We 
should not be at liberty to accept such an invitation, unless 
it were made definite. 

If it should be renewed and you will go at the same time, 
and think it important enough for me to cross the ocean, 
I see no reason why I should not take a steamer in the 



SOME LETTERS 339 

middle of July. The opportunity seems to me of supreme 
importance and I would be most glad to help in the devel- 
opment of such a plan. If you wish to cable me, address 
" diversity, Baltimore." 

With the most sincere regard, I am 

Your wondering friend, 

D. C. G. 

November 1, 1902. 
My life-long friend : 

You do not need a word from me to assure you of the 
admiration, the respect, and the sincere affection of your 
old companion on the voyage of life, — all that, you have 
in increasing affluence as the years roll on. But I must wel- 
come you to the band of Xes and wish for you, when out 
of office, increasing health, honor and happiness. You have 
earned a period of tranquillity and repose, and I trust that 
you will enjoy it as much as you have enjoyed activity and 
service. 

Affectionately yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 



Ann Arbor, Feb. 27, 1859. 

My dear Daniel: 

Your letter came — I am ashamed to think how many 
weeks since. Many thanks and hearty for its freight of the 
kindly spirit of the old times. 

The statement of your plans and work interested me 
deeply, though I knew what you were about already, as I 
had watched your articles. 

You have chosen a noble field — one of whose existence 
few among us have any inkling, one which Ritter first 
showed me and toward which I have looked with longing 
eyes ever since. And I have to do a little at it myself, for 
there is ever present to me Dr. Arnold's dictum that to 
teach History without Geography is impossible. Some of 
my students do work which would delight you. 

Sorry was I to miss you in N. Y., would have chased you 



340 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

had not my time been so scrimped. I had but two days, and 
every moment of that time was employed in laying out an 
appropriation for books in my department. 

We have all been greatly interested at the news of your 
windfall at Yale and all are still very curious to know how 
the conflicting statements regarding the amount are to be 
harmonized. What is the truth of the matter? 

You will also be well pleased to know that, in addition 
to much good luck during the year, our institution has so 
weathered the storms of demagogues and devotees to Com- 
mon Schools and nothing else, that about ten days since the 
Legislature by good majority in each house remitted for- 
ever the interest on the claim of 100,000 dollars held by 
the State against the University. Our Regents will there- 
fore without doubt organize the long desired Law School 
at their March meeting. The Professors will probably be 
two of our chief men, Felch and Campbell. F. has been 
Governor, U. S. Senator, U. S. Claim Commissioner in Cali- 
fornia and is, I think, an alumnus of Harvard. Both are 
noble men and fine lawyers, not demagogues or pettifoggers. 

We are all alive, and I think every man of us feels new 
vigor at seeing the College grow so nobly. My own work 
is considerable, but I like it, have two classes a day in His- 
tory and am scratching away with all energy possible on my 
lectures to the Seniors which begin next week. They begin 
with the Revival of Learning and the Reformation, and I 
have worked at them more conscientiously than ever at any- 
thing else. 

But one branch of our professional labor is not so well 
known in the East. We have to bring the institution in con- 
tact with the people and make it influence the state. Con- 
sequently all of us who have anything to say make it a rule 
to say it throughout the state. The greater number of my 
Friday evenings are given to lectures in towns big and little 
from one side of the Peninsula to the other. Three weeks 
ago I held forth in Detroit, two weeks ago in this city, night 
before last in Toledo, O., and my three Friday evenings 
to come are already engaged. Our President, who is not 
only a fine reasoner and excellent scholar but a most effective 
off-hand speaker, is out among the people about twice a 



SOME LETTERS 341 

week. Our Professor of Latin is out, often telling the mul- 
titude about Rome, etc.; our Professor of Greek occasionally 
fires a shot at the opposition to classical studies, our Pro- 
fessor of Natural History edits the State Teachers' Jour- 
nal and gets access for us to every school and teacher, 
etc. So we go, and though you might think it a bore and 
a lessening of dignity, we think ourselves all the better for 
it. I could recount some droll experiences. Tell Charlie 
Tiffany when you see him that I was quartered on a strong 
Methodist family in the western corner of the state, was 
asked to say grace, and that summoning up Charlie's good 
words on such occasions, I did it with considerable unction. 
The University, you know, must not be allowed to suffer 
in reputation for want of a grace before meat. 

Work in our buildings is progressing. Gas fitters are 
preparing for better illumination. Carpenters and glaziers 
are getting galleries and cases ready for our new collections, 
and when you visit us a month or two hence, you will see 
some things to delight you. 

Ah, my Daniel, your room stands vacant here yet. Why 
can't you and Fisher and Charlie run out this way? Ex- 
press trains and night-cars have made a mere nothing of the 
trip. My neighbors go to N. Y. or Boston with as little 
trouble as they go out to tea. 

By the way, we are trying to rival you in Art matters. 
A movement is set on foot to have in the University a 
marble statue by Rogers, our Ann Arbor sculptor, now at 
Rome. This is a goodly town for amateurs in music, and 
so last Tuesday we had a concert which brought 130 or 140 
dollars. They are to have another, besides tableaux, etc., 
until they realize enough. Rogers will give us all his part, 
as he is anxious to have some work of his represent him in 
his old home. 

But, my dear Daniel, once more let me urge you to come 
out here. We are really nicely situated, with plenty of ac- 
commodation for visitors and great longing to see them. 
How is Fisher? Recommend this trip as good for his 
health. Remember me kindly to old friends and believe me 

Most truly yours, 

A. D. White. 



342 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

New York City, March 26, 1874. 
My dear Daniel : 

Taking up the Post last night, I saw that the Philistines 
had been upon you, but that good men and true were on 
your side. 

One of the most curious things in this country is the 
mania among " Bohemians " for blackguarding any one 
connected with a state educational institution, especially if 
that institution be called a university. 

Dr. Tappan used to have showers of this dirt thrown 
over him; so did I at Ann Arbor, and I am receiving the 
full amount now, being shown up in all the moods and tenses 
of lying and abuse. 

So I trust that you will not be discouraged at this 
experience. 

I have been curious to know what Bishop Peck accom- 
plished for his rival " University " in California. How 
was it? 

We have just had a nice little piece of good fortune. 
Certain leading gentlemen of Jewish birth have en- 
dowed a non-resid'l Professorship, giving it the interest 
of $20,000.00, under title of the Professorship of Hebrew 
and Oriental Literature and History — Prof, to reside say 
three to six mo. and lecture. We shall elect Felix Adler, 
Ph.D., graduate of Columbia in excellent standing and 
more recently of Heidelberg, whose lectures here have at- 
tracted much attention. 

Mr. McGraw has been making some additional gifts and 
so has Mr. Sage. Our Chapel is really a beauty — a gem. 

Have you ever thought any more regarding [the] subject 
of my former letter and conversation with you? Let me 
know how your mind is working on that and kindred 
subjects. 

I am making a long stay here on account of my wife's 
health. Should you write within two or three weeks after 
receiving this, your letter will doubtless reach me as above. 

I am enjoying such scraps of leisure as I can get in some 
literary and historical work which may see the light some 
day. I enjoy nothing so much, and only wish I had more 
time for it. 



SOME LETTERS 343 

Europe seems still afar off. I long for a run on the other 
side, but new cares arise. . . . 
I remain 

Yours most truly, 

And. D. White. 



Paris, July 24, 1878. 

My dear Daniel: 

Thanks for your letter of July 6th. It has given me very 
great pleasure. I regret that duties here prevented my 
seeing the accounts of the doings of my class to which you 
refer. En revanche, Smalley and I celebrated the 25th 
Anniversary of our Tontine Fourth of July Dinner, and of 
our Commencement, as well as we were able. 

Exposition matters are going on well. My work is not 
at all onerous, but very interesting. As a sample of it, take 
the morning when your letter arrived. It was passed in 
breakfasting and looking over papers with Monsieur Jules 
Simon, the President of our Group, and other associates. 
My duties bring me into pleasant relations with a very large 
number of distinguished men, and as I am in roomy quar- 
ters here — the apartment formerly occupied by our Min- 
ister, General Noyes — I have been able to return some of 
their social kindnesses. It is, on the whole, one of my most 
agreeable experiences, and I regret that you are not here. 
Sir Charles Reed, Forel, Dr. Gregory, Marin and Fouret 
I meet from time to time. 

You are kind in wishing me to stay away from home until 
sundry literary projects are carried out. Would it were 
possible ! But my tickets are taken from Southampton on 
the steamer " Main " for September 10th. and then will 
come the old harness again. Still, I hope to get some time 
to carry out the projects discussed with you. 

Professor Fiske is here as my guest, and two or three 
other of our men are abroad, to say nothing of sundry stu- 
dents. Last evening I had our old friend Professor Blake, 
now of Providence, to dine, and afterward Professor Lyman 
rode out with us. So you see that we keep up our American 
relations. 



344 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

By the way, I have been rather interested of late in the 
Winchell imbroglio at Nashville. What an idea of a uni- 
versity those trustees must have! What was tragical in 
Galileo's case is farcical in this. It appears that Bishop 
McTyeire took great pains to show to Winchell that there 
was no similarity between the two cases. Neither of them 
was aware that the Bishop used precisely the same argu- 
ment to Winchell — indeed, virtually, verbatim — which 
Cardinal Bellarmin used to Galileo. Bellarmin told Galileo 
that his ideas " vitiated the plan of salvation "; McTyeire 
told Winchell that his ideas " were contrary to the plan of 
redemption." You see how great minds run in the same 
channel. What a theory of a University it is, to be sure; 
and yet that is what our opponents all over the country 
seem to be struggling for. Very hard to see that the world 
progresses any, if, instead of being in the hands of a Roman 
Catholic Cardinal, we are to fall into the hands of a Metho- 
dist Bishop. The real advance is in the fact that they have 
no longer any power to oppose us with physical torture. 
In view of the spirit shown, and the articles written, against 
Winchell for his very moderate tendency to evolution doc- 
trines, it would seem that the absence of torture is not due 
to any lack of will in the matter. I have written to Win- 
chell for the entire facts, congratulating him on his con- 
duct, which was very manly, and have a letter written to 
McTyeire making a similar request. I have not yet decided 
to send this. I want the facts for my new book. 

Winchell is really superior to his reputation among sci- 
entific men. I have long known this. You must be aware 
of a tendency among the later generation of scientists to 
underrate everything except minute experiments or observa- 
tion, or what they call " original research." I am not at 
all satisfied that they are entirely right. Indeed, I am con- 
vinced that they are in many respects wrong. There is a 
very striking remark in one of the last chapters of Buckle's 
first volume on this point, where he speaks of the piling-up 
of the results of experiment and observation in this age; 
and of the painful lack of deeply thoughtful men to group 
these results, and bring order out of chaos. Winchell 
seems to me, to some extent, one of these men. He has 



SOME LETTERS 345 

been fettered by his attempt to " reconcile Religion and 
Revelation"; but some of his work, I think, is valuable. 
Why not give him a chance to say his say in one of your 
lecture rooms? It would have an admirable effect in many 
ways. If we could afford it, I would not hesitate a moment. 
All here join in most hearty regards to your family and 
yourself, and I remain 

Yours very truly, 

And. D. White. 

Legation of the United States, 
St. Petersburg, January 16, '94. 
My very dear Friend : 

Your kind letter of December 24 finds me here just after 
my return from Dresden, where I had passed the holidays 
with my family. 

Xmas Eve was passed with them, and more than once I 
thought and spoke of our arrival at 2 Norfolk St., Strand, 
and of our hearing the bells, and our going out late at night 
to see if we could at least catch the outlines of Westminster 
Abbey against the sky and of our returning fully satisfied, 
though we had gone East instead of West, and seen only 
the outline of St. Paul's; it always comes back to me very 
vividly. 

My stay in Dresden was of course most pleasant; there 
is an agreeable English and American colony, and some 
Germans were very good to us. 

As to St. Petersburg: your old friend Mr. Prince always 
asks about you, but what perhaps will interest you most is 
the visit I recently made to our old quarters on the Vassily 
Ostrof; Mrs. Hutton, whom we formerly knew as "An- 
nette " and who is now an elderly, kindly, gray-haired lady, 
living very comfortably in a nice large house on the Island, 
conducted me to the old place, having arranged with the 
Russian gentleman, who now occupies it, to receive me. 
This he did in the best Russian style, putting the house at 
my disposition, and telling me to take all the time I wished 
in the various rooms. 

So I lingered about an hour, recalling, with Annette, the 
old scenes. 



346 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

There was the little parlor where I used to sit with the 
Governor on our return from various places late in the 
evening, and discuss Thomas Jefferson; there was the big 
dining room where I have seen at table some very curious 
scenes, and at the end of it the niche where stood the organ 
on which I used to practice. 

Above all there was the Chancellery, where the work of 
the Legation was carried on. As I sat in it, one scene espe- 
cially arose in my memory; there upon the wall formerly 
hung a map of the United States; I was wont to gaze upon 
it and dream of the greatness of the country and its future 
development. One day I said to Erving, " What a future 
there is in that map, — the one spot is slavery, and I would 
be glad to see it blotted out, if it cost fifty thousand lives 
to do it." Erving, usually so gentle, was horrified and gave 
me a most earnest rebuke. Little did he or I think that 
slavery was to be blotted out at a cost of close upon a million 
of lives and ten thousand millions of treasure, and that 
within ten years from that day. The recollection of it all 
almost overcame me. There, too, was the corner in which 
I did a mass of reading, embracing Gibbon, Alison, Guizot, 
Haxthausen, &c, &c, which has had so great an influence 
on my whole life since. 

Speaking of the Chancellery, I remember how for weeks 
Erving devoted himself there to putting into order the Lega- 
tion Archives, and I sometimes go to certain drawers in the 
book-cases of the room in which I am now sitting and glance 
over some of the papers he then arranged so neatly, just to 
recall old times. 

But I spare you more reminiscences for the present; 
when we meet I shall not let you off so easily. 

It is within the possibilities or even probabilities that I 
may settle down to do some deferred work next winter at 
Florence ; I will be glad to know if you are coming over 
next summer or autumn. 

Please present to Mrs. Gilman and your daughters as- 
surances of my sincere respect and regard, in which Mrs. 
White would cordially join, were she here, and I remain 

Ever yours faithfully, 

And. D. White. 



SOME LETTERS 347 

Ann Arbor, Nov. 22, 1900. 
My dear President : 

I am greatly surprised to receive from you the news- 
paper announcement of your intended resignation. Do you 
and Dwight and Munger and Fisher really mean to crowd 
me out of my chair by your example and by the statement 
that at seventy one ought to decamp? Really it begins to 
look so, especially as I am seventy-one. 

I am sure no one but you sees any reason for your drop- 
ping your work, except the most excellent one that you are 
ready to take life a little more easily, and you have well 
earned the right to do that. 

No one of us has done so much as you to make an epoch 
in graduate work in America. I have always been proud 
that I had a part, however humble, in persuading your 
Trustees to bring you from California to Baltimore. 

I confess I have debated much during the past year 
whether I ought not to take the resolve you have taken. 
But the way has not been fairly open. My health is perfect. 
But there are days when the release from the multitudinous 
cares of my post would be welcome. I congratulate you and 
somewhat envy you the luxury, not of being idle, — for 
that neither you nor I can be, — but of doing what you 
please for your own edification and for the good of mankind. 
May your afternoon sun shine- undimmed! 

Yours in septuagenarian bonds, 

James B. Angell. 

November 21, 1900. 
My dear Gilman : 

What does it mean that such a lively young fellow as you 
should announce his intention to resign? Is it possible that 
it is a quarter of a century since I witnessed your inaugura- 
tion as President of Johns Hopkins ! What a grand work 
you have accomplished since that day, everywhere, the world 
over, recognized as of immense service to the cause of 
progress and right methods in education. Thus far I had 
written when the slip you sent me from the Sun came in. 
I have read it with interest, and although familiar with the 



348 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

facts stated, am more than ever impressed with what has 
been attained through your energy, intelligence and disin- 
terested devotion. It has been my privilege to have your 
friendship during almost half a century, and I rejoice that 
you have rounded out the " three score and ten " with such 
marvellous results attained. 

You must, I am sure, look back with profound satisfac- 
tion on such a successful and brilliant career. May you long 
live to enjoy your well earned rest and may God's blessing 
be with you and yours. 

Faithfully your old friend, 

Geo. J. Brush. 

35 Bryanstone Square, 
London, W., April 10. 
My dear Gilman: 

It was a great pleasure to have news of you all again; for 
I am often thinking of you, and wondering how you all 
thrive. . . . 

Our weather continues very stormy, and must till some- 
how this Irish question gets settled. It reminds me some- 
times of your Slavery question from 1850 to i860; not that 
the issues are similar, but that there is the same general 
admission that something must be done, and the same diffi- 
culty in approaching agreement as to what, with the same 
increasing intensity of feeling. At present the Coercion 
Bill has heightened this intensity among the Liberals; and 
we have had fears of scenes compromising our whole par- 
liamentary system. Individually, I feel clearer than at first 
that the Home Rule solution is the right one; but most 
of one's private friends, at Oxford, Cambridge and else- 
where are in the opposite or (so-called) " Unionist " camp. 
What is the real state of American opinion? We hear very 
different accounts. Mr. Gladstone believes you are all with 
him; but this I venture greatly to doubt. 

I trust the J. H. U. continues to grow and thrive as it 
was doing in 1883; that series of Political and Economic 
Studies is admirable; we have nothing here to compare 
with it. 



SOME LETTERS 349 

My sisters are in Devonshire, or they would join in kind- 
est remembrances to your wife and elder daughter; pray 
give mine to them and Lizzie also. My brother is going to 
U. S. shortly on business. I hope he may be able to go to 
Baltimore and see you. I write from my constituency, to 
which I am devoting a short Easter holiday. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

J. Bryce. 



March 18/97. 
My dear Gilman: 

I ought to have written long ago to thank you for your 
letter in reply to Lord Acton's questions; but I have been 
expecting to receive it back from him; he has however kept 
it for reference. He was grateful for it, saying it had been 
most serviceable to him. 

It has given us all here the greatest relief that the Vene- 
zuela trouble has been referred to arbitration; and I feel 
sure that your Commission has answered a good purpose 
not only in preventing further complications till an arbitra- 
tion scheme could be settled, but also in collecting and sift- 
ing so many data of importance. If you have a copy of 
your Report and relative documents in print I shall be 
greatly obliged for one, as you kindly offer to let me have 
it; but of course you will consider this wish as coming sec- 
ond to any official or quasi-official claim on you. We are 
hoping that after all the General Arbitration Treaty may 
be ratified by the Senate. The behaviour of the jingoes 
there has made a painful impression, not that we do not dis- 
count jingoism abroad as we do at home, but that it looks 
as if they thought there was a large element in the U. S. to 
which they could play. We are all well here in London, 
but my wife's father is seriously ill, which causes us much 
anxiety. Please give our kindest remembrances to your wife 
and daughters. Is there any chance of your coming over 
this year? 

Always truly yours, 

James Bryce. 



350 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Jan. 7/9, Hindleap Lodge, 

Forest Row, Sussex. 
My dear Gilman: 

Your volume of University Problems has just reached me, 
and I want to thank you most heartily for it. I shall read 
it with the greatest interest, and doubtless find much light 
bearing on those problems which occupy us here as well as 
on those to which you more directly address yourself in the 
U. S. A. Where principles are treated as I am sure you 
treat them in these discourses, there is profit for other coun- 
tries also ; and your counsel will be all the more useful be- 
cause we have few superior minds addressing themselves 
here to these topics, fewer than thirty years ago. 

I had welcome news of you the other day from young 
Eliot, our Second Secretary at Washington, and thank you 
for your kindness to him. He has an unusually keen and 
active intellect. Of ourselves there is not much to tell. My 
mother, now 85, keeps fairly well and my sister and wife 
are thriving. We have built ourselves and been inhabiting 
the cottage whereof we spake to your wife at N. East Har- 
bor fifteen months ago, and have grown so fond of this hill- 
top with its deep woods and vast stretches of heathy land 
that I hate the idea of returning to London and the House 
of Commons, especially as our politics are singularly lifeless. 
Yours ought not to be, with so tremendous an issue pending; 
but one grieves to see how it will apparently be decided, and 
decided with very little chance given to the people of having 
it duly discussed and their opinion on it delivered. The 
Executive has seldom more effectively shown how much it 
can do. My wife joins with me in warmest remembrances 
to Mrs. Gilman and your daughters. 

Always sincerely yours, 

James Bryce. 

Feb. 24/99. 
My dear Gilman : 

My absence in the country since July has thrown my 
papers into so much confusion that I cannot feel certain but 
what your Introduction to Tocqueville may have reached 



SOME LETTERS 351 

me and be in a pile of printed matter which has not yet been 
thoroughly sifted. But I do not think it has come, for if 
it had, the chances are that I should have seen it and placed 
it aside to be read at the first opportunity. If you are scarce 
of copies, perhaps you had better wait till I have been able 
to make a complete search. If you have plenty, I shall be 
grateful for one, for nothing could be more interesting to 
me, and should it turn out that I have a copy already, I will 
bestow the second one " where it will do most good," viz. 
either on A. V. Dicey or on the Oxford library which con- 
tains the best collection of matter bearing on constitutional 
matters, that of All Souls College. 

Thank you for your kindness to Eliot of our Embassy. 
He is a man of great ability, worth your knowing. 

Who is Henry Jones Ford? He has written a very 
thoughtful book on your political development. It is a 
great pleasure to me that you are able to take a hopeful 
view of matters on your side, for I must own that the Im- 
perialist policy causes me much disquietude. But America 
lives by her optimism, which has a wonderful way of refut- 
ing the sombre prophets. Our kindest remembrances to 
your wife and daughters. We often think of you all and 
wish intensely for a chance of seeing you again. 

Always sincerely yours, 

James Bryce. 

March 24, 1899. 
My dear Gilman : 

I must no longer delay writing to thank you, which I do 
most heartily, for your handsome edition of Tocqueville, 
and especially for the most interesting and instructive In- 
troduction you have prefixed to it. I am tempted to write 
you an essay in reply, discussing the points — or a few of 
them — you have dealt with in so agreeable and suggestive 
a way, but were I to attempt this, the letter would not be 
mailed for days or weeks. You have rendered a great ser- 
vice to readers of Tocqueville in the sketch you have given 
of his journeys, of the circumstances under which he ob- 
served, of the men who helped and influenced him. These 
throw much light on his conclusions, and constitute a marked 



352 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

point of divergence between his method and that of 
Montesquieu. 

So far as I can venture to express an opinion, I agree with 
your views, both on T.'s book and on the topics you discuss, 
save in three points. 

i. I can't quite agree with what seems to be your estimate 
of Lecky's Democracy and Liberty. I like him (Lecky) 
personally extremely, and have the highest opinion of his 
book on Irish history, a model of diligence and fairness. 
But the verdict of competent critics on this side the water 
has been that his " Democracy and Liberty " is a very thin, 
rather confused, and indeed superficial book, without serious 
grappling with the real problems. He does not seem to 
me to understand America in the least; and his partisanship 
makes his views on English affairs of very little value. I 
should not presume to say this merely as the result of my 
own perusal. So far as I know it is the opinion of most 
people here who have examined his book carefully with 
knowledge of the topics. 

2. Do you quite sufficiently dwell upon the difference be- 
tween the first part and the second part of Tocqueville's 
book? To me the second seems comparatively viewy and 
unreal. Nothing can be more charming in point of style 
and method. But it seems to contain much less of substan- 
tial worth. I give this opinion with diffidence, and should 
like to know what you think. But it is borne in on me every 
time I read the book. It does not in the least diminish my 
profound admiration for Tocqueville's book as a whole. 

3. Here I am still more diffident. But your closing sen- 
tences are more optimistic than I should quite have looked 
for from you who have so often dwelt to me on the disap- 
pointment of the last thirty years of American politics. As 
I see that many others of the American friends I most re- 
spect — e.g. Charles Eliot — share your optimism, I am 
doubtless wrong. But I say this to invite an expression of 
your view. 

Our kindest remembrances to your wife and daughters, 
and heartiest thanks again for your delightful Introduction. 
Always sincerely yours, 

James Bryce. 



SOME LETTERS 3S3 

November 20, 1906. 
My dear Friend : 

I don't see why you should n't remember your deserted 
friend and come and see him from time to time, favoring 
him with your gracious presence. My regards to your dear 
wife. Glad you like my offer to Baltimore. Your face 
shone in my eyes as I made it. 

Always yours, 

Andrew Carnegie. 

Cambridge, 9 Feb. 
Dear President: 

You see that I have taken several days to consider the 
kind invitation of " your Trustees " to your commencement. 
I am doubly and trebly engaged here, and was from the 
beginning, but it was so pleasant to remember the 2 2d of 
February of former years, that I dallied with the idea of 
coming again. Your commencement is positively attractive. 
There is none of the wearisomeness about it which seems to 
be considered indispensable elsewhere. I am more afraid 
of a commencement oration than of a mad bull. J. H. is 
guiltless of such, and may its fair record never be stained. 
The meeting at your hall, the reception at your house, how 
different from the crowds I used to suffer from ! It is not 
because I fear I should again take Sylvester's umbrella (he 
was going off with one man's overcoat and another man's 
overshoes from here) or because you say I should have an 
opportunity to make a few remarks, that I invent a double 
and treble engagement. My hands are over full, and I am 
half the time not well, and groan under burdens that I used 
never to feel. There is not a man or woman connected with 
Johns Hopkins that it would not give me a thrill of pleasure 
to see (I might leave out S. because I have lately seen him 
a week together). I would come to Baltimore, if I could, 
to see the Kings alone. Then if I add (not speaking of 
your house) my kind Trustees, Miss Grace, the Rieman- 
Valentine set, the Johnstons, I think I am a fool not to 
come. But I have promised to have certain work done, and 
I am very slow about everything now. I shall think of you 

23 



354 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

all on the 22d and write to Mrs. Gilman. Best love to her 
and to Alice and Lizzie. 

Yours ever, with thanks, 

F. J. Child. 

Cambridge, May 10, 1885. 
Dear President: 

I must entreat your clemency for having been so tardy 
to acknowledge your gift of the translation of Roland. I 
have not in all this time had an hour to myself and besides, 
the long interval has been darkened or weighted with a 
variety of troublous things, lately gout. 

I wanted to go through the translation with the French 
in one hand and the English in the other, and a vague idea 
of finding the leisure for this — though where it should be 
I don't know — has made me wait. I have compared the 
two sufficiently to see how the work is done. The transla- 
tion is necessarily a little free, and would not do for what 
our boys call " a pony." In spirit it seems to me very re- 
markably good. I don't believe an Englishman could make 
one that would represent the original half as well. Roland 
is one of the great poems of the world. If I were a French- 
man I should prize it beyond anything in the tongue, and 
a Frenchman may defy the world to show its like. The 
effect of the original is extremely well given by this version. 
An Englishman would have been in danger of rhodomon- 
tade. M. Rabillon preserves simplicity through all the fire 
and splendor and intensity of the romance. This transla- 
tion will give, I should say, all the pleasure that any English 
version can impart, and perhaps quite as much as even 
Gautier's in modern French. I shall be much surprised if 
the book is not extensively read. A more delightful piece 
of literature than it makes would be hard to find. I ought 
to have said just now that the pleasure it gives an English 
reader will be as great as Gautier gives a French reader; 
for I think M. Rabillon's English will produce much more 
effect on an English reader than the best modern version in 
French. 

I have myself, while reading it at one sitting, after look- 
ing at it before, been quite carried away with delight. 



SOME LETTERS 355 

I have not heard of you and yours for a long time, and 
will hope that with the exception of Mrs. Gilman's great 
loss there has been no other trouble. My world is fast 
falling to pieces. Lowell sails for these shores on the 10th 
of June, but I suppose he will go back again. He says he 
wishes to die here. Best love to all of you. I am greatly 
in need of making some calls with Alice and going to a circus 
with Lizzie. 

Ever yours faithfully, 

F. J. Child. 

Dunford near Midhurst, 29 Sepr. 1854. 
My dear Sir : 

I am much obliged by your kind remembrance of me after 
so great a variety of interesting adventures on the Conti- 
nent. It would indeed be a gratification to me to hear your 
account of all you saw, especially in Russia; and should you 
prolong your stay in London over the next month I shall 
certainly hope to have the pleasure of calling on you. I 
wish I could offer you any temptation to pay me a visit here. 
I am in an almost inaccessible part of the country — with- 
out railroads and in a corresponding state of mental back- 
wardness. It is a purely agricultural district, where the 
land is held in large properties, and the peasantry are (as is 
almost universally the case in England) completely divorced 
from the ownership of the soil. To complete the discour- 
agement, I am building a house here, or rather it is finished 
but not painted, and much of my furniture is piled up in the 
stable; so that you would find yourself in a state of dis- 
comfort hardly to be surpassed in a Russian inn. Yet we are 
in the midst of our most lovely rural scenery, and I should 
rejoice to ride or walk with you on our beautiful South 
Downs. I dare not say more, for there is selfishness in the 
very idea of bringing you 50 miles, nearly one half of the 
distance by coach, to see me. But pray oblige me with a 
letter saying how long you will stay in London that I may 
know whether I can hope to be able to call on you there 
and believe me truly yours, 

R. COBDEN. 

Dan'l C. Gilman Esq. 



3S 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

P.S. One word about Russia. Do you think the Em- 
peror has the mental malady of his father ? Is it true that 
Sebastopol, after so long a warning, is quite unprotected? 
If so, the Russians must henceforth be dubbed the Chinese 
of Europe, — great in proclamations, mighty on the map, 
but incapable of coping with civilized nations in the field. 

Have you any idea of visiting Brighton or Portsmouth? 
I am very accessible here from either of those places. The 
railway connects with Chichester & from thence a shilling 
omnibus fare reaches Midhurst. 



October 21, 1873. 

President Gilman. 
My dear Sir: 
I was particularly sorry not to see you last Saturday, for 
I should have liked to hear something about education in 
California very much. Don't flatter yourself that the nu- 
merous schemes for getting government aid for education 

— high, low or middle — are put to rest. Far from it. 
Their advocates are only rearranging their armories a little. 
The whole country — including most of our public men — 
is inoculated with the idea of government benefice. If the 
merchants want a Panama canal, the government must make 
it; if the farmers want agricultural schools, they must be 
provided at government charge; if the people are suffering 
the inevitable ills of an irredeemable currency, the President 
and the Secretary of the Treasury are the kind gods who 
must set all things right. This utterly unrepublican and un- 
American frame of the public mind is the thing I want to 
see changed; for I believe it to be, in its legitimate out- 
workings, fatal to public liberty. As to national university 
or agricultural school subsidies, they are only special and 
not very important symptoms of a deep-seated disease. 

I don't see the least chance of my coming to California 

— I wish I did. 

With cordial regards, 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Eliot. 



SOME LETTERS 357 

February 29, 1876. 
My dear Gilman : 

I look back with much pleasure to my brief visit to Balti- 
more, and want some memorial of it. Will you therefore 
have the kindness to send me copies of the American, Sun 
and Gazette for the 23d? I have no copy whatever of 
my little speech, and think that the newspapers' account of 
the whole transaction may be interesting to us both years 
hence. 

I forgot to say to you that the American's version of 
my speech was accurate so far as I saw except for one word 
which can be changed in the proof. 

The hospitality of yourself and your friends was delight- 
ful, and I was much impressed with the hearty interest which 
the best people in Baltimore take in your work. Coming 
back I had a morning at Yale with Brush which I much en- 
joyed, although it is a melancholy thing to see how the best 
teachers there feel towards Porter. Candor and frankness 
are after all the most necessary qualities in a college presi- 
dent. You will need also an unusual amount of patience 
and perseverance. Don't overwork yourself. That is a 
doctrine which I feel the need of preaching, because I don't 
practice it; but more and more I see that time is a neces- 
sary element of success in educational reforms, and that 
those of us who want to accomplish certain improvements 
must give ourselves the needed years for the work. 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Eliot. 



New York, February 20, 1905. 
Dear Mr. Gilman: 

I shall be very glad to have you notice Merz. Appar- 
ently it has never reached this office. 'T will seem like 
stories from the land of spirits to have you once more avail- 
able for the Nation, as in our very beginning. 

I presume a page will give you scope enough. At this 
moment my pigeon-holes are rather congested from the 
autumn output. 

Very cordially yours, 

W. P. Garrison. 



358 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Stribling's Springs, Va., Aug. 15, 1879. 
My dear Mr. Gilman : 

Many thanks for your cordial letter and the kind greet- 
ings from your household. I was very much tempted to 
follow your example and settle for the summer in one of 
your lovely New England villages, but my wife very natu- 
rally desired to see her mother and was especially solicitous 
about the health of a favorite aunt, and once in our old 
home we find it too troublesome to transport ourselves and 
our children to a distant part of the world — as Massachu- 
setts seems to the true Virginian's eyes. So we have fol- 
lowed my wife's mother — Mrs. Colston — into this moun- 
tain retreat — some twelve miles from Staunton — one of 
the oldest and most quiet of Virginia watering places. The 
primitiveness of these resorts is doubtless familiar to you by 
report, and you know that people come to such places in 
order to be uncomfortable and to enjoy the two Southern 
luxuries of idleness and talk. But if our cabin would be 
considered very rough by you Sybarites, and Mrs. Gilman 
would be in despair at an apartment without wardrobe or 
chest of drawers, we, who have fought through several 
summers like to this, stand it tolerably well. The air is 
cool, the sulphur water reasonably strong, the fare abundant 
after the old Virginia type, and the company made up of 
pleasant people, chiefly from Richmond and Kentucky. 
How long we shall stay I cannot tell, probably not long 
after the first of September. I should like to be back in 
Baltimore as early next month as possible and may precede 
my wife and children. This summer I have done very little, 
and these last weeks of vacation must be devoted as far as 
possible to preparation for next session, which promises to 
be for me a year of very arduous work. A trunk of books 
supplies me with ample material for all manner of lucu- 
brations and I hope to make my fortnight here tell. 

We are all in fair health. My wife sends her love to 
Mrs. Gilman and kind regards to you, and Emma is much 
gratified at Lizzie's remembrance of her. 

With best regards to Mrs. Gilman and all your household, 
I am 

Yours faithfully, 

B. L. GlLDERSLEEVE. 



SOME LETTERS 359 

Heidelberg, June 29, 1896. 
My dear Mr. Gilman : 

When I last wrote, I did not know how perilously near 
we were to losing you. Since then I have received fuller in- 
formation, and even now I have not quite recovered from 
the post-liminary fright. You need no assurance from me 
how I feel in this matter. Apart from the loss to the Uni- 
versity, which, at this crisis, would have meant ruin, my 
own happiness and usefulness, which have been so largely 
determined by your wisdom and goodness, were at stake. 
Under no other chief could a man of my temperament have 
served so cheerfully, so hopefully. In fact I have never 
thought of working under any other President without seri- 
ous disquietude. In my not infrequent hours of depression 
I have gone to you for comfort and have never failed to 
return with new heart and vigor to my work, and as no new 
field is possible for me I should have missed you inexpres- 
sibly. Many problems remain which you alone will be able 
to solve and I hope that as long as I am connected with the 
Johns Hopkins University I shall have the inestimable 
privilege of your friendship and your counsel. 

As to the financial crisis, the gravity of which I find was 
not overestimated by pessimists like myself, I suppose the 
University is safe for five years, but I am glad to see that 
its friends are doing more liberal things than mere safety 
and I hope we shall see a new and vigorous expansion. 
Last night when I was witnessing the illumination of the 
castle from Professor Ihne's house on the other side of the 
river, I fell into talk with one of the professors of the Uni- 
versity of Heidelberg, who seemed to be deeply interested 
in our affairs, and I am sure that any disaster to the Johns 
Hopkins would be felt the world round. 

As you have seen by the date of this letter, I am back 
upon a familiar ground or rather more familiar ground, for 
Heidelberg has developed very much in the last six years — 
to say nothing of the forty-two years that have elapsed 
since I first saw the famous town. My little discourse at 
the college for girls in Scutari went off very well, as I have 
been told, and was listened to devoutly by an audience of 
some three or four hundred, among them representatives 
of the Turkish government, of the Greek and American 



360 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

churches, of the Philological Syllogos of Constantinople. 
America was represented by our charge d'affaires, and alto- 
gether I had a sufficiently dignified audience, outside of the 
faculty itself and the College people. The Levant Herald 
gave a fine abstract of the address, and a synopsis of it has 
appeared, I believe, in one of the Armenian papers. The 
whole visit of nearly a fortnight was a droll episode in my 
life as well as in my trip, and if I did not see Constantinople 
as well as I might have done if I had gone there a month 
before, still I have learned many things that I could have 
learned in no other way. The ladies of the school were 
kindness itself and carried out their instincts of hospitality 
into the most minute particulars. From the time I left 
Athens to the time I reached Vienna I was at no expense 
whatever except for a few independent ventures of my 
own, and I must say that I have been spoiled by this experi- 
ence so that for the last three or four days I have resented 
very much the necessity of putting my hands into my own 
pockets. I left Constantinople last Tuesday, the 23rd, and 
took the new Constanta route by steamer as far as the Rou- 
manian seaport on the Black Sea; thence via Bucharest and 
Budapest to Vienna. The railway journey is much more 
interesting than the route taken by the Oriental Express and 
as I was personally conducted by the President of the Col- 
lege, Miss Patrick, I had very little trouble with the neces- 
sary changes of cars and inspection of luggage. At Vienna 
I staid a couple of days making up my mind what next to 
do. The season is too early for St. Moritz, and as my 
general health is superb I hesitated to go in for a cure at 
Carlsbad simply because my legs were not all they were ten 
years ago, and so I determined to join my friends the 
Wheelers at Heidelberg and write up my Greek notes. 
What I have seen and heard and thought for the last 
three months will keep me busily employed for many 
a day, and when my University mail finds me, as it will in 
a few days, I shall have no reason to complain of lack of 
occupation. 

Pardon this long letter and present my best regards to 
Mrs. Gilman and the young ladies. 

.Yours faithfully as ever, 

B. L. GlLDERSLEEVE. 



SOME LETTERS 361 

Nov. 8, 1894. 
My dear Oilman : 

Many thanks for your note. There is nothing left of 
them. Nothing more crushing has occurred in my time. 
It beats the Tweed rising hollow, because there is so much 
of it. The passage of the Constitutional Amendment, which 
we did not expect, is the crowning mercy. The wicked have 
never been so sorrowful in this city. 

Best remembrances to Mrs. Gilman from her oldest sur- 
viving friend, in which Katharine joins heartily. " Stop in 
when you 're passing our way." 

Yours sincerely, 

E. L. Godkin. 



March 30, 1895. 
My dear Gilman : 

I was exceedingly sorry to have missed your address and 
reception last night. The fact is I had set it down for to- 
night, and my blunder burst upon me only this morning 
when I saw the report in the Tribune. It is a great mortifi- 
cation and disappointment to me. Besides hearing you, I 
should like to have testified to my sense of your value as a 
" good American." There is no man to whom the country 
is more indebted. Scribner & Co. are going to publish this 
summer a volume of old Nation articles, and I had great 
pleasure and pride in putting in my forecast, made twenty 
years ago, of what you would do. Long may you wave ! 

Faithfully yours, 

Edwin L. Godkin. 

New York, July 3, 1853. 
Dear Sir: 

Will the Linonian be a Temperance or an Alcoholic fes- 
tival? Will it be over and adjourned by 8 P. M. ? 
A word in reply will oblige 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley. 
D. C. Gilman, Esq. 

Sec. L. S. N. Haven, Conn. 



362 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

New York, Nov. 16, '55. 
Friend Gilman: 

I thank you for yours of yesterday. We will allow you 
$5 per column for your articles, which is as much as we pay 
almost any one. If they seem just right, they will be printed 
as Editorials, which (because of the larger type) will fill 
up pretty fast. We should prefer to have them generally 
make only about a column per article, but there is no limit 
to the number of articles. It is not hard to elucidate one 
point per article, when the articles are extended ad libitum. 

We should like an article on , also one on LePlay, 

if you can shew just what they suggest, or would have done, 
within our compass. There is no use in exposing the sores 
of Society unless with a hope of helping to heal them. I 
hope you will write, not a review, but a statement of what 
these writers' facts suggest of practical value. 

I am going to Washington week after next. 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley. 
D. C. Gilman, Esq., 
N. Haven, Conn. 

Senate Chamber, Washington, 
July 25, 1886. 

My dear Dr. Gilman: 

I have received, I do not know whether by your courtesy 
or that of some other person, a copy of your address before 
the Phi Beta at Harvard. I have read it with great delight. 
It is one of many proofs how easily and amply you are meet- 
ing the great demand made upon you by your most impor- 
tant relation to the scholarship of the country. 

All you say as to what should be the relation of univer- 
sity training and influence to politics and government is true. 
But I wish somebody would tell me why it is that this theory 
so often does not prove true in practice. I have sometimes 
thought that the most unscholarly utterances we hear on 
current politics come from scholars, the most unscientific 
judgments come from men of science, the most thorough 
blackguards are our educated gentlemen, and the most heat 



SOME LETTERS 363 

and excitement is hard by the cool and quiet atmosphere of 
the university. I may state this rather strongly. I only 
speak of one state and one college. But I think these gentle- 
men forget that the scholar's political judgments are only 
of value when he has applied the methods, the thorough- 
ness, the patience, the self-command, of scholarship to poli- 
tics. It is I presume a good thing for a statesman to learn 
Greek. But he is not quite fit to depose Bentley or Porson 
when he has learned the alphabet. 

However, this is all quite foreign to your most admirable 
address. 

I am faithfully yours, 

Geo. F. Hoar. 



12 East 23d Street, 
New York, September 27, 1881. 
Dear President Gilman: 

My friend Trench (son of the Archbishop), one of the 
firm of C. Kegan Paul & Co., publishers of the Nineteenth 
Century, is to be in Baltimore in a few days. 

I don't foist my friends on one another, but as he hap- 
pens to be a good deal of a gentleman, for a publisher, and 
intimate with a good many people who can't know too much 
about Johns Hopkins, I have thought you might care to 
show him around. If you do, you can attack him through 
the Baltimore Post Office, where I am addressing him 
now. 

I don't say a word to him about you, not wanting to inter- 
fere with that freedom on your part which is the birthright 
of every American citizen. 

Should you pick him up and introduce him to Gilder- 
sleeve and Martin as a friend of mine, I sha'n't have occa- 
sion to blush for any of the three. 

Please remember me cordially to your family. Tell that 
delightful daughter (this is the sober expression of a man 
of parental condition) that I hope she still " enjoys being 
grown up." 

Yery truly yours, 

Henry Holt. 



364 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Washington, March 5, 1885. 
Dear Mr. Gilman: 

Mr. Condit is here and will remain two or three days. 
I trust you will therefore carry out your suggestion, and 
spend Saturday afternoon and evening with us. Mr. New- 
comb leaves here on Monday for a short absence. 

I often feel as though we were asking very much of you, 
but then comes the thought that it is for the public good and 
not for any private ends, and that you are always a worker 
for the Public. 

With kind regards, 

I am yours truly, 

Gardiner G. Hubbard. 

October 25, 1891. 
Dear Mr. Gilman: 

I have just finished reading your address at the opening 
of the Sage Library, and must tell you how much I have 
enjoyed it. It is the best thing of the kind I have ever read, 
and I do not believe a better was ever written. 

I see I have called it a thing; excuse me, it is not a thing, 
but a mind, a living spirit, that ought to run over the world, 
and bear rich fruit in every city and town that owns a library. 
Thanks and again thanks for the address. Dr. White 
spent two days with me last week and we spoke often of 
you, and he told me of your address, but I had not then 
read it and could not appreciate his praise. 
With kind regards, 

I am your friend, 

Gardiner G. Hubbard. 

Cambridge, August 16, 1891. 
Dear President Gilman: 

Thank you very much for your letter of the 4th, which 
reached me this morning. I am much obliged by your kind 
offer, but I feel that I should rather not engage myself to 
lecture anywhere except at your University. I do not know 
yet precisely what margin of time, after the delivery of my 
course at Baltimore, will remain for me to spend in the 



SOME LETTERS 365 

United States; and in any case I should prefer to remain 
free. I am not the less sensible of your kindness in offering 
to make arrangements. 

Condition No. 2, in the printed paper which you enclosed, 
causes me no kind of difficulty; unless, indeed, it is taken 
to mean that pagan literature must be treated in some direct 
relation to Christian Ethics. " Pagan, I regret to say," 
was Mr. Pecksniff's parenthetic apology for the Graces; but 
even that need scarcely be made for the Hellenic Muses. 
With many thanks, believe me 

Yours very sincerely, 

R. C. Jebb. 

My dear Mr. Gilman : 

I wonder if you remember the little girl to whom you 
gave the " Vicar of Wakefield " many months ago. I have 
never forgotten you and dear Mrs. Gilman, and I have 
often thought of the happy afternoon I spent with you in 
Baltimore, one lovely May day last spring. I would like 
very much to see you again and I am writing this little note 
to tell you how delighted we shall all be if you will come 
to see us when you pass through Tuscumbia on your way 
to, or from Florence. I heard a few days ago that you were 
coming south, and would be in Florence about the middle 
of March. My mother and father send you their kind re- 
gards, and wish me to say that it will give them great pleas- 
ure to welcome you, and to do anything in their power to 
make your stay with us pleasant. Hoping that I shall soon 
have the pleasure of seeing my kind friend in my own dear 
home, I remain, with kind love to Mrs. Gilman and your 
daughters, 

Affectionately yours, 

Helen Keller. 
Tuscumbia, Alabama, 

March eighth. 

FOTHERGILL COTTAGE, ATLANTIC ClTY, 

March 17, 1883. 
My dear Mr. Gilman: 

I must draw near to you, even in some visible way, as 
you meet with other loyal hearts to honor my poet — and 



3 66 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

yours — and since I may not speak to fit so high an occa- 
sion I would like to send you some words of his. 

Following a swift impulse I have chosen part of a letter, 
where renunciation and faith are leading the artist to accept 
his vocation, in the opening of its brief exercise. 

As you shall assist in setting the seal upon its close, I 
would have these words in your mind, and may the offering 
reveal the unutterable friendship and sympathy of 
Your faithful friend, 

Mary Day Lanier. 

Brooklyn, Oct. 23rd, 1874. 
. . . Now, this is written because I sit here in my room 
daily and picture thee picturing me worn, and troubled, and 
disheartened: and because I do not wish thee to think up 
any groundless sorrow in thy soul. Of course, I have my 
keen sorrows, momentarily more keen than I would like 
any one to know; but I thank God that in a knowledge of 
Him and of myself which cometh to me daily in fresh reve- 
lations, I have a steadfast firmament of blue in which all 
clouds soon dissolve. . . . Have then, ... no fears nor 
anxieties in my behalf: look upon all my "disappoint- 
ments " as mere witnesses that art has no enemy so unrelent- 
ing as cleverness, and as rough weather that seasons timber. 
It is of little consequence whether / fail; the " I " in the 
matter is a small business; Que mon nom soit fletri, que 
La France soit libre! quoth Danton: which is to say, inter- 
preted by my environment: let my name perish, — the 
poetry is good poetry and the music is good music, and 
beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it will find it. 

Sidney Lanier — to his nearest friend. 
(For March 19th, 1883.) 



My dear Sir : 

This moment I had the significant cards, informing me 
that you are a Unionman in a double sense. Whatever a 
man of my age, knowing all the seriousness of human life, 
can wish to a young man entering that bond whence all 
civilization originally flows, I wish to you and Mrs. Gilman 
with a fervor which is increased by the amenity and kindli- 



SOME LETTERS 367 

ness that you have uniformly shown me in our intercourse. 
May God bless you! Present my best respects to Mrs. 
Gilman, unbekannterweise as the Germans properly (though 
somewhat lengthily) say. 

Mrs. Lieber joins me in my warmest wishes. May peace 
forever dwell in your house, and, soon, in your country, 
that is to say not a la Fernando Wood but after a large and 
plain victory of Right and Truth. So be it ! 

Thanking you for having thought of me in this auspi- 
cious period of your life, I am 

Very truly 

Your obed't 

Francis Lieber. 
New York, 7 December, 1861. 

New York, 6 July, 1863, 

(Thermopylae Day.) 
Te Deum laudamns! 

I thank you, my dear Sir, for your information concern- 
ing the paper in the Law Register. I wish people would 
glance at what I have said on voting and debating armies 
in my Civil Liberty, and wondered that Gov. Seymour 
(N. Y.) did not quote that, when in his message he quoted 
me on the danger of executive influence on elections. It 
is all a mistake to let armies vote — an essential mistake — 
and it is a great mistake in our friends to try to give the 
vote to armies, because it galls us now and works very hard 
against us. Tables are constantly turned in history. Noth- 
ing [is] worse and more ruinous than to get power over 
opponents for the time being [rather] than by permanent 
legislation. 

Te Deum laudamus! 

Your friend, 

Francis Lieber. 

Deerfoot Farm, January 17, 1887. 

Dear President Gilman: 

The finest snowstorm of the winter is going on and I 
had just said to my daughter, " I should be perfectly happy 
watching it if I had n't made that foolish promise to speak 



368 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

in Chicago," when your letter was brought in. Now I made 
this foolish promise while I was in England last summer. 
Chicago seemed so far away in space and the 22nd Febru- 
ary in time ! And they asked me to talk to them on politics, 
and it looked like a duty (for I really have a kind of mes- 
sage for them), so I said yes. Now the day they fixed was 
the twenty-second of February, — the very same for which 
you ask me. So you see it would be impossible. And 
really I don't mean to speak any more after I have kept 
the promises already made. I never liked it, it shortens 
my life in more ways than one, and now that I am become 
an Emeritus professor (without pension, unhappily) I 
mean to apply the Emeritus privilege in other directions. 
If I went anywhere it should be to Baltimore, for all my 
memories of the place are pleasant. Pray remember me 
most cordially to all my friends there, especially to Mr. 
Johnson and Dr. Thomas of your Board of Trustees. 

Faithfully yours, 

J. R. Lowell. 

My dear Gilman: 

I have just looked at my card to see if I could join you 
on the 23rd. I find I have to preside that evening at the 
Neurological Society. Life gets so loaded with these un- 
ending duties that the poor old ship staggers on ever over- 
loaded. The efficient folk seem to me few in number and 
to be constantly and unrelentingly put upon by the drones. 
No doubt you too feel it. But all this growl is because I 
cannot go to Baltimore. 

Yours truly, 

Weir Mitchell. 
Feb. 5th. 

Many thanks, my dear Gilman, for your address. Large 
thoughts are welcome always — and why cannot we meet 
oftener? Life wanes and gives us yet no parliament of 
good fellows — 

" There is something in this world amiss " — 
Yrs. sincerely, 

Weir Mitchell. 
nth March. 



SOME LETTERS 369 

Washington, Feb. 19, 1876. 
My dear Sir : 

Thanks for your two letters. I return that of Mr. 
Wright. Does not the human heart possess the property 
of hardening on the approach of a man who introduces 
himself as "the only American so honored," etc.? I feel 
a little curiosity to see his " tracts." The only ones of the 
six in which he can show whether he really knows much are 
Elliptic Integrals and Quaternions. 

I fear I cannot help you much in describing Sylvester's as 
it lies mostly in departments to which I have given little 
attention. Mathematics in general do not admit of being 
described in really intelligible popular language. 

Mrs. Newcomb will avail herself of your kind attention. 

.Yours very truly, 

Simon Newcomb. 

Washington, Saturday. 
My dear Sir: 

Next time you want anything kept from our friend, look 
out for all leaks. From the moment of your invitation till 
after the meeting he never ceased to question me upon what 
I was going to do with myself during each hour of my stay, 
and I had to try every dodge short of absolute falsehood 
to keep him off. How horrible, then, to see him turn up 
after dinner and absolutely refuse to talk on any other sub- 
ject than what I had been doing with myself, what I had 
eaten and where, etc., finally winding up with the plump in- 
quiry whether I had not dined then and there, when of course 
the chain broke and everything came down in a lump. 

So, I had to laugh over the funny episode which ended 
one of the most pleasant evenings I ever spent. 

Please make my compliments to Mrs. Gilman and be- 
lieve me 

Ever yours, 

S. N. [Newcomb.] 

Bainbridge, Ga., Dec. 24, 1889. 
Dear President Gilman: 

Your very nice letter came duly to hand a few days be- 
fore I left home to spend the holidays in this delightful 



370 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

region (in the woods about 60 miles from the Gulf of 
Mexico). We were greatly interested to hear of your 
pleasant journey. J am sorry you did not get the consular 
list; it was duly mailed to your Paris address. It is very 
pleasing to hear that your special passport served you so 
well. I suppose this will not reach you before you get to 
Gibraltar and that the royal reception you may anticipate 
from the Governor of the fortress will have been a thing 
of the past. If not, please remember me to Consul Sprague. 

At the University all goes smoothly, so far as I know. 
. . . Rowland and I are somewhat concerned about the 
projected I>. & O. tunnel up I loward St. lest it may shake 
our instruments when trains go through. I hope to have 
some observations made on the Pa. tunnel before we take 
any steps in the matter. 

The question which you have heard me propound (more 
than once perhaps) whether the American Celestial Mech- 
anician of 1900 1925 is to be a university man or a gradu- 
ate of the backwoods is not yet decided in favor of the 
J. H. U. The difference between ability to comprehend 
and master pure mathematics and ability to apply mathe- 
matical ideas to concrete problems is very striking. The 
university can do little more than water the astronomical 
planl ; but perhaps this is true of all other plants. But do 
not understand me as fearing that the results of our work 
will be otherwise than creditable. I am talking only of a 
search for the coming man. 

I am stopping here with Professor R. Pumpelly; he has 
an idea of yachting on the Mediterranean next winter to 
afford a daughter with weak lungs a mild climate. When 
you are through your winter experience with that sea per- 
haps you can drop me a line for his benefit. 

With kindest regards to Mrs. Gilman and daughters, I 
remain 

[Yours very faithfully, 

S. Newcomb. 

Gotiia, 4 August, i860. 

Sir: 

I have long felt under deep and lasting obligations to you 
for the truly liberal and enlightened manner in which you 



SOME LETTERS 371 

have drawn attention and made known to the American 
public geographical labors in Europe in general and my 
humble endeavors in particular. And now that by your 
revealing the author's name of those most excellent geo- 
graphical articles in the American Journal I am enabled to 
address you, I take the earliest opportunity of sincerely 
thanking you for the great kindness and indulgence with 
which you have always spoken of my Journal. I look always 
forward to your articles as the best on geography pro- 
duced in the New World. 

I have lately issued a Map of the Alleghany System, but 
as all the maps in my Journal are invariably spoiled by 
the transfer lithographic printing (which we cannot do with- 
out, both on account of cheapness and of time) I take the 
liberty of enclosing you a proof from the original plate, 
which you will, I dare say, find much more clear and dis- 
tinct than the published copies. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obliged and obedient servant, 

A. Petermann. 

West Point, July 26, 1876. 
My dear President Gilman: 

Yours of the 22nd has reached me, but as I am here I 
cannot reach Philadelphia in time to be with you. But 
I expect to be there some time, after three or four weeks. 
Acoustic instruments always seem to me more like play- 
things than anything else, but I suppose we must have some. 
... I am now studying and working as hard as possible 
on various things, among which is the theory of diffraction. 
Optics was my weak point, but I take considerable interest 
in it now and I may end by making it one of my strong 
points. In original work I am trying to solve some prob- 
lems in electrical distribution and am making slow progress 
as they are very difficult. As soon as I get through with the 
above, I shall use the library here to look up certain ques- 
tions preparatory to original investigation on them. I am 
in a great hurry to get to Baltimore and unpack my library 
to go to work. 

Yours truly, 

Henry A. Rowland. 



372 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Cambridge, Mass., March 29, 1886. 
Dear President Gilman: 

I foresee that I shall be quite unable to go southwards 
this year, or to attend the anniversary exercises of the Johns 
Hopkins University. Both the conflict of the college duties, 
and my press of other engagements, forbid me to think of 
leaving this year. I much regret the fact, for a visit to 
Baltimore is always delightful, and this promised to be 
most of all delightful, in view of the occasion. 

How deeply I felt the death of Professor Morris it was 
not very needful for me to say. You know how my fortune 
with him was just that of so many other young men, viz., 
to find in him a fatherly friend, of the warmest, the freest, 
and the wisest sort. His place is one that you can never fill, 
if you wait a century. I feel sure that no other misfortune 
of equal seriousness has come upon the University during 
its first decade. I hope that nothing so ill may soon again 
befall. 

Permit me, while deeply sympathizing with you for this 
calamity, to congratulate you most earnestly that you have 
finished these ten years with such a generally happy and 
with such a wonderfully well ordered and successful prog- 
ress to show to the world. These ten years are, after all, 
my first ten years also, in one sense, and a strong feeling 
of personal gratitude to you, to whom I owe so much good 
fortune, joins itself with my admiration of your great work 
in Baltimore. 

[Yours truly, 

Josiah Royce. 

New York, December 6, 1900. 

My dear President Gilman: 

If the presidency of the National Civil Service Reform 
League is offered to you, which, as I have the best reason 
for thinking, it will be, I earnestly hope you will not decline 
to accept it. My reasons for resigning are altogether polit- 
ical. They have absolutely nothing to do with the work the 
president of the League has to perform. That work is in- 
deed very light, and it will henceforth be even lighter than 
it has been before, since all the current routine will now be 



SOME LETTERS 373 

attended to by the chairman of the Executive Committee 
— an office recently created and now filled by Mr. Bona- 
parte and by the Secretary, Mr. McAneny, two officers 
exceptionally able, experienced and efficient. 

I mention this because I know from my own experience 
that men of our years do not like to take upon themselves 
new burdens of labor and responsibility. But I know also 
from experience that in this case that burden is hardly any 
burden at all. I have not the slightest doubt that what 
little work there is, as well as the association with your 
co-laborers, will be in the highest degree congenial to 
you. 

Believing as I do that by accepting the presidency of the 
League you will render a great service to a most worthy 
cause, I permit myself to hope that the invitation which 
will be addressed to you will meet with a favorable response. 

Very sincerely yours, 

C. SCHURZ. 

Monday, May 18 [1896]. 
My dear President Gilman : 

Many thanks for the letters of introduction to Professors 
Norton, Thayer and Child. I hope to use them next 
Monday. 

How can I express a tenth of the gratitude my wife and 
I feel for all Mrs. Gilman's and your kindness to us in Bal- 
timore. It has been really a great time for us both. How 
much we have gained both of friendship and of knowledge 
and of stimulus in work, it will take us many, many years to 
realise. 

I am going back with new ideals and examples for my 
own work in Glasgow with my students. It is a very little 
appendix to so vast a work as the creation and organisation 
of Johns Hopkins University, but I wish you to know that 
your influence will (if I do my duty) be at work in improv- 
ing certain theological classes in Glasgow. 

God bless you and spare you for many years to come in 
the work to which He has called you in Baltimore. 

Ever yours, 

George Adam Smith. 



374 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Athenaeum Club, March 23, 1876. 
My dear President : 

I have been waiting in the hope of hearing from you par- 
ticulars as to your plans and what you wish me to do before 
replying to your friendly communication of February 29. 
I do look forward, as you are kind enough to augur, to a 
new course of usefulness in connection with your and my 
University, to which I already begin to feel the attachment 
of a favored son. I have since received and written to ac- 
knowledge a letter from Mr. Reverdy Johnson acquaint- 
ing me with my definite appointment to the chair of 
Mathematics. 

From the tenor of your remarks when you were last 
here I rather anticipate that you will ere long be on your 
way back to England and that you will be able to utilize 
my services here and on the continent, but of course I hold 
myself at the disposal of the Trustees and await their and 
your instructions to guide me in my future proceedings. I 
telegraphed yesterday to you in order that you might have 
an opportunity of taking into consideration whether it might 
be for the interests of the University to treat with one of 
the Arnolds respecting the chair of English literature in the 
University. I hope you will acquit me of any other motive 
but regard for the good of our University if I should seem 
to have taken too much upon myself in making such a sug- 
gestion. The news of my appointment is beginning to circu- 
late in our scientific and literary circles. 

A day or two ago Matthew Arnold spoke to me about the 
University and said that if he could get leave (meaning 
from his wife and relations — he is brother-in-law to Mr. 
W. V. Forster, our ex-Minister) he would prefer a con- 
genial appointment as a professor in such an institution to 
grinding as an Inspector of schools in England. He even 
went so far as to say that I might acquaint you that he 
could be approached on the subject. This would have been 
a very great catch indeed, as I suppose no man is so well 
known (certainly none better) than Matthew Arnold in con- 
nexion with literature in either of our two countries. Sub- 
sequently, however, he said he feared it was out of the 
question as regarded himself, but that such an appointment 



SOME LETTERS 375 

would well suit his brother Thomas Arnold (who old Dr. 
Arnold always said was the cleverest of the family), who 
took the highest honors at Oxford and was subsequently 
head of some government college in the Colonies which he 
resigned on account of having become a Roman Catholic. 
At present it seems he hovers between the two churches. 
Matthew Arnold says his brother is best known as the 
author of the life of Wickliff. I dare say you have men quite 
as good on your side of the Atlantic, but thought that before 
proceeding to elect any one to the chair of English Litera- 
ture you might like to know what I had to say about the 
two Arnolds. 

Believe me 

Yours very truly, 

J. J. Sylvester. 

30th March, 1876. 
My dear President: 

Your letter and Mr. Reverdy Johnson's were duly re- 
ceived and I wrote replies to both a few days ago. In obe- 
dience to your summons I lose no time in repairing to head- 
quarters and have written to secure a passage by the Cunard 
steamer which leaves Liverpool on Saturday week next, the 
8th proxo. 

I have just received the account of the inaugural meeting 
just sent to me by the Trustees of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity. I hope they will not be scandalized by their Math- 
ematical Professor having composed a poem of 201 lines, 
all (except 5) rhyming to Rosalind! It is printed, but 
whether it will be published or reserved for private circu- 
lation will depend on circumstances. It is considered here 
by good judges as a remarkable tour-de-force, and my lady 
friends who have heard it recited are good enough to say 
that they find it " charming." 

With best wishes and looking soon to join you, I remain 

Yours very truly, 

J. J. Sylvester. 

My dear President Gilman: 

In leaving your happy country I feel as if it were due to 
you and to myself to leave behind me one of the efforts of 



376 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

that muse of mine which ever and anon escapes from and 
soars beyond the field of Mathematics. I dedicate it to 
you, as a tribute of gratitude for the unvarying kindness 
which has made my sojourn in Baltimore so — endurable. 
With my cordial adieus to your estimable ladies, 

Yours hastily, 

j. j. s. 

I enclose for Mrs. G. my poor likeness, taken at the in- 
stant of departure. 

New College, Oxford, 30th July, 1889. 
Dear President Gilman: 

I am greatly your debtor for various communications, 
among which I must particularize your noble discourse at 
the opening of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. To-day I have 
received and read with the greatest interest the monthly 
circular showing the present condition and aims of the Uni- 
versity and the Hospital; you are doing a great work, and 
the evidence of it cannot fail to strike all who read the 
document. I hope you will excuse my dilatoriness in re- 
sponding and believe me when I say that no one takes a 
deeper interest than I do in the continued prosperity (in the 
highest sense of the term) of the institution to which I 
always proclaim and shall ever feel it was an honor to me 
to have been attached. I have been troubled considerably 
about my eyes and in other ways during the last half year 
and more, or would not otherwise have delayed so long in 
acknowledging your kindness in remembering and writing 
to me. I have met Gildersleeve and Judge Brown in Lon- 
don, but from unavoidable circumstances seen less of them 
than I should have desired. 

It was a great shock and distress to me to receive the in- 
telligence of Mitchell's death — so young and with so much 
intellectual power. He does not seem to have remained 
equal to his promise after leaving the Johns Hopkins. 
Craig and he dined with me in London some years ago. 

I have read with much regret also an account in our papers 
of the late President Woolsey's death — if I am right in 
thinking that he is a near relative of Mrs. Gilman. I sin- 
cerely deplore an event that must bring sorrow to her. Your 
time must be very fully occupied and your energies taxed 



SOME LETTERS 377 

to the utmost by your double Presidency under an arrange- 
ment which I think must work to the advantage of Univer- 
sity and Hospital alike, provided that it does not take too 
much out of you. I hope in the course of the next term to 
have a paper ready for Craig. I am just completing another, 
with Hammond's invaluable aid, for the Acta Mathematica. 
The air of Oxford does not suit many people, and I am 
one of them, but I do my best to keep on working. 

With kind regards to Mrs. Gilman and all friends in 
Baltimore, believe me 

Yours sincerely, 

J. J. Sylvester. 

1228 Madison Avenue 
[Baltimore] 10. 14. 1889. 
Dear Mr. Gilman: 

. . . The hours spent with you in the discussion of sub- 
jects of varied interest and importance have left only help- 
ful and ennobling recollections. To have seen so much ac- 
complished by the University under your guidance in this 
decade and a half, and to have had the smallest share in 
promoting the success of your wise and far reaching plan 
has been unmixed pleasure. 

I trust your enjoyment of a period of rest and recreation 
will be complete, and that a near view of the failing glories 
of the older civilizations will send you back to us who 
already owe you so much with your confidence increased in 
the grand possibilities of our own country, and if possible 
with greater devotion to its development along the lines of 
true knowledge and Christian virtue. 

With my best wishes and kindest regards to Mrs. Gilman 
and your daughters, I am always 

Very truly and faithfully yours, 

Jas. Carey Thomas. 
[One of the original Board of Trustees.] 

1530 Park Ave., Nov. 22, 1901. 
My dear Dr. Gilman : 

I have read with great interest your last report — alas, 
that it is to be the very last — which you were kind enough 
to send me. 



378 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

It recapitulates in very brief and modest terms the clos- 
ing chapter of the first administration of our University, 
which has always seemed to me to be the most fruitful and 
inspiring period in the history of Baltimore, and your last 
official utterance sounds the same note of invincible courage 
and hopefulness which has characterized your whole career, 
and been the secret of your wonderful success. It is an 
augury of the continued prosperity of the noble institution, 
whose foundation you have laid on such broad lines. May 
you live to see it emerge from the clouds which have for a 
time overhung it. Indeed I am not sure, tho' the outlook is 
so discouraging at times, but that this time of stress will 
prove a helpful discipline. 

Institutions, like individuals, may be ennobled and purified 
by trial — and it does not appear that altogether the best 
moral and intellectual results are achieved by the most richly 
endowed universities. The Johns Hopkins, tho' so young 
and so poor, has a noble body of alumni who are doing 
good work for the country in many fields, and who are very 
loyal and grateful to their Alma Mater, as evidenced by the 
very fine letters from four of their associations printed in 
your report. 

You have planted and nurtured, with wise and patient and 
loving care, a priceless tree. It will bear fruit for the heal- 
ing of the nation, for many generations after you are gone. 
Gratefully and sincerely yours, 

Lawrence Turnbull. 

June 15, 1892. 
Dear Dr. Gilman: 

I beg you will accept my hearty thanks for your more 
than kind note of the thirteenth of June, accompanying a 
delightfully readable copy of your Cornell Address of last 
October. The address has interested me exceedingly. It 
is not much compliment, I am aware, to say that it has 
greatly expanded my b'ibl'io thecal ideas — for these were 
limited enough. But it has presented the library itself as 
an entity, apart from its contents, in such new and attrac- 
tive points of view as to set me to thinking, and make me 
desire and resolve to think still more, on the large subject 
which it introduces to me so freshly and so delightfully. 






SOME LETTERS 379 

I have more than once dreamed of the life of a student, 
in a quiet library, pursuing a favorite study, with all the 
books he could need, and all the time and opportunity he 
needed to read them, as one of the happiest of lives — in- 
tellectual lives, at all events. There is something of the 
atmosphere about it which Dr. Holmes, in his " Hundred 
Days," found in his Cathedral Close, not exactly a lotus- 
eating air, but something as near to it — as is proper. 

But I forget that I am writing to a man who has only 
twenty-four hours more for Baltimore, before starting upon 
a delightful voyage. I assume that Mrs. Gilman goes with 
you, of course. Please offer her my kindest regards and 
wishes. Bon Voyage! to you both. 

Always sincerely yours, 

S. T. Wallis. 

New Haven, Nov. 27, 1894. 
My dear Mr. Gilman : 

I wanted to have my thanks go back to you as promptly 
as your kind letter came to me, for it struck to my heart 
as few others did, because it was written under the im- 
pulse of a rush of sorrow kindred to my own, as you re- 
called the friend and colleague of those earlier years, when 
you were together fighting a good fight for principles and 
methods you both lived to see, in a measure, accepted and 
bear fruit. 

That it was his rarely beautiful and noble character 
that stood far in the front of all he may have otherwise 
achieved, in your thoughts, was most grateful to me. 

Few knew him as you did then, and fewer still saw so 
clearly wherein the power of his life lay; in his unswerv- 
ing fealty to truth, his purity of motive and " a heart at 
leisure from itself," from any self-seeking impulse, that 
could thus give the entire devotion of his best thought to 
whatever work or cause he had in hand. 

As I have read the kind notices and addresses of the 
younger men, who loved him and looked to him as a leader, 
I have wished that some friend of his earlier days, like you, 
who knew something more of him than the books he had 
written or the honors that had been accorded him, had also 



3 8o LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

spoken. No one could do it so well as yourself, because 
your intimate association with him was during his active 
life, before he was set aside from all direct participation in 
public affairs. As you think of him it is like the opening of 
a long sealed book. It is the whole spirit of his life as a 
man among men that you see, and not merely the scholar 
on whom the world has later put its stamp of recognition; 
nor are your memories overlaid by those of these years 
of sad seclusion, patiently and nobly borne while still using 
so faithfully all his powers within the limits left him. 

I was glad to hear from Mr. Lanman that you were to 
have something to do with the Philadelphia meeting, and 
I hope the memories of which you wrote so feelingly when 
you first knew that he would be to you henceforth only a 
memory will still prompt you to say a few words like those 
you said to me. 

It will seem strange to you when I say that I wrote the 
first two pages of this letter months ago, and, interrupted, 
have looked at it on my desk almost daily, longing to thank 
you for what I had read so gratefully, but utterly unable to 
make my hand obey my will. The strain of those twelve 
distressing days and nights of incessant watching, so vainly 
spent, and the fortnight of inevitable cares and business that 
followed, which I was able to go calmly through while 
needed, proved more than I, without young strength, can 
soon rally from. 

But I have been sure that your friendship would find 
excuse for me. 

With an affectionate remembrance to Mrs. Gilman and 
Alice, believe me 

Most gratefully yours, 

Elizabeth B. Whitney 
[Mrs. William D. Whitney]. 

Princeton, N. J., July 15th, 1902. 

My dear Dr. Gilman: 

Your letter from Berlin has given me the deepest grati- 
fication. I do not know any one whose support and God- 
speed I should more desire in the circumstances. I feel that 
a great deal of my university training has come from you 



SOME LETTERS 381 

and from my association with the men at the Hopkins. And 
just now, at the outset of my new duties, while I feel myself 
painfully untried in the things I am about to undertake, 
there is a peculiar value to me in finding that you, who know 
men and understand the work to be done, have confidence in 
my success. I wish that I could hope that a day would come 
when some one could stand up and say in public to me, as 
truthfully as I had the pleasure of saying to you, that my 
work — a great work covering many years of achievement 
— had been thoroughly well done. I shall strive and pray 
for that end, and letters like yours will help me forward 
in the arduous business. With warmest regards both to 
Mrs. Gilman and yourself, 

Gratefully yours, 

Woodrow Wilson. 



CHAPTER VII 

RETIREMENT FROM JOHNS HOPKINS AND PRESIDENCY 
OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 

The close of a quarter-century of Mr. Gilman's work as 
President of the Johns Hopkins University and the close of 
the scriptural period of threescore and ten years of his life 
came very nearly together. That the approach of the 
double event should have inclined him to relinquish the task 
to which he had so long devoted his best powers is not sur- 
prising and requires no explanation. There has been much 
conjecture, nevertheless, as to whether the prolonged diffi- 
culty in maintaining the resources of the University at such 
a level as was required for preserving its position and its 
standards had a share in bringing about Mr. Gilman's de- 
termination to resign. To what extent this may have been 
so it will never be possible to determine; it was not his 
nature to take the world into his confidence in regard to his 
personal feelings. It would not be in any way strange if 
this element in the case played a part in his decision; he 
might well have felt that the time had come when it was 
fitting that the problems confronting the University should 
be taken hold of by younger hands. The way in which the 
notice of his intended resignation was received by the 
country may be indicated by one extract from out of the 
scores of editorial comments made by the press of all sec- 
tions, this being from the New York Evening Post of 
November 21, 1900: 

On the completion of twenty-five years of distinguished 
service as President of the Johns Hopkins University, 
President Gilman will resign his charge to a younger man. 



RETIREMENT FROM JOHNS HOPKINS 383 

It is fitting now to recall the significance of that extraordi- 
nary educational development which he initiated and guided 
in America. When in 1875 he accepted the Presidency of 
the new Johns Hopkins University, the institution was all 
to make, and fortunately President Gilman was given a free 
hand. The founder (advantage not enjoyed by all organ- 
izers) was dead, and subject of beatification rather than of 
negotiation. The Trustees trusted their man implicitly, 
and he proved worthy of their confidence. He gave the 
new university an ideal of exact scholarship and a working 
plan of original research. It was a new idea in American 
education. . . . You might have hunted over America in 
vain in the late '70s to find another such institution, and 
nothing has been more gratifying than the generous way in 
which the great universities which subsequently carried out 
President Gilman's idea, and carried it further than he, 
with small and shrinking resources, could do, have acknowl- 
edged his leadership in shaping the American university 
ideal. It was largely his work, in its direct and indirect 
effects, that gave American scholarship its citizen's rights 
in the academic world at large. Some such reflections the 
news of his retirement will bring to all interested in higher 
education in America. President Gilman resigns ostensibly 
in obedience to the unwritten law that threescore-and-ten 
are the years of an administrator. At Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity they would face gladly the " and if they be four- 
score "; but those who know the present status of the uni- 
versity know, too, that the problems of financial support 
demand not only the sheer force, but the long future, of a 
younger man. 

Whether or not the financial aspect of Johns Hopkins 
affairs at the time had any influence in shaping Mr. Gil- 
man's decision, there is another element which has some- 
times been supposed to have had a part in it, but which cer- 
tainly had no share whatever in the matter. It had been 
generally understood for some little time preceding Mr. 
Gilman's formal notification, in November, 1900, of his 



384 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

intended resignation, that he was contemplating this step; 
and it was not until half a year later, in May, 1901, that he 
had any intimation of Mr. Carnegie's scheme of a great 
institution for the promotion of knowledge. The idea of 
any prospective participation in the work of another great 
institution was not in his thoughts. When he was asked to 
take part in the shaping of Mr. Carnegie's great project, 
the splendid possibilities of it fired his imagination and 
appealed to that desire for creative usefulness which was 
the dominant trait of his character and which abode with 
him to the end; but no such prospect was before him when 
he determined to retire from the Johns Hopkins presi- 
dency, and the idea that the future Carnegie Institution 
had any connection with that retirement is wholly without 
foundation. 

In a letter to his old friend, Rev. Dr. Jacob Cooper, he 
gives perhaps a fuller expression than anywhere else to the 
state of his feelings on the subject: 

Baltimore, Nov. 23 [1900]. 

My dear and life-long friend : 

I will not delay a day before giving expression to the feel- 
ings that are awakened by your note, — first of all, grati- 
tude for such appreciative friendship, — for the kindness 
that overlooks my faults and forgets my limitations. I re- 
member well the letter that you wrote me on my accession 
to office, and I am grateful that the close of this long period 
brings with it your sacred benediction. 

And next, a word of regret that you do not approve my 
withdrawal from office. Two considerations may not have 
occurred to you. We have come to a new epoch, and the 
man who inaugurates new measures should have before him 
a reasonable prospect of twenty years' service. Next, altho' 
I am well, I am not young and I am involved in many edu- 
cational and philanthropic cares and duties. To these I can 
give much more time if I am free from the daily duties of 



RETIREMENT FROM JOHNS HOPKINS 385 

administration. To you I might quote the example of Day, 
Woolsey, Dwight, Brush, Kellogg (of California), Munger 
and Fisher, — all retiring at seventy (except the last named, 
a little later). 

To hold a professorship is very different from holding 
a president's chair. 

Once more, I am 

Gratefully and affectionately yours, 

D. C. GlLMAN. 

Rev. Jacob Cooper, LL.D. 

The formal resignation of President Gilman, to take 
effect at the close of the academic year, took place on Com- 
memoration Day, February 22, 190 1. It was accompanied 
by no ceremonial feature nor any valedictory address; but 
a year later, when the University instituted an elaborate 
and impressive celebration of the completion of a quarter- 
century of work, the resignation of President Gilman, and 
manifold acknowledgments of the greatness of his service 
to the University and to the country, formed a leading 
feature of the celebration. The few words that were 
spoken on the earlier occasion were, however, fraught with 
the deepest feeling on the part of Mr. Gilman himself and 
on the part of those who represented the Trustees and the 
Faculty; and it is pleasant to recall that Mr. Gilman was 
able to refer, at this his last appearance as active President, 
to the splendid gift of land to the University and the pro- 
spective accompanying addition to its endowment, which 
made the future of the institution look brighter and more 
promising than it had done for years. 

There were, in fact, three anniversary occasions on which 
the idea of the quarter-century was in evidence; for Mr. 
Gilman entered upon the presidency of the University, and 
began his constructive labors, in January, 1875, and accord- 
ingly Commemoration Day (February 22) in 1900 was 

25 



3 86 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

marked by the reading of an address by Professor Gilder- 
sleeve, presented on behalf of the Faculty and testifying 
to their appreciation and affection. The address was as 
follows : 

As this is the last public function of the University before 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the day when you began the 
work with which your name will forever be associated, it is 
the unanimous wish of your colleagues, Mr. President, to 
make the occasion memorable by an open expression of 
their loyalty, their affection, and their gratitude. 

The symbol of your Presidency of a quarter of a century 
has just been presented by the sons of a kindred University. 
It is our privilege to attest what that Presidency means to 
us who have followed your lead and have been inspired by 
your example. To all who know what such work as yours 
demands, the season of preparation, of lonely meditation 
counts for much; and months before the oldest and earliest 
of your fellow-workers, the survivors of the first Faculty, 
were taken into your counsels, you had faced and solved the 
problems of an organization with which the historian of 
American education must begin a new chapter, one might 
say a new volume. 

With larger resources other universities have expanded 
beyond our means but not beyond your hopes and plans, and 
those hopes and plans antedate the festal inauguration of 
February 22, 1876, and the modest beginning of work in 
September of the same year. Those recurrent cycles will 
doubtless find fitting celebration. This year is your own, 
and as the retrospect reveals to you more than to any one 
else the arduousness of the road we have travelled under 
your guidance, so we wish you to rejoice with a special joy 
in what has been achieved under your administration. 

The world has recognized your services to the University 
by claiming other services at your hands. The Trustees 
have already given expression to their regard and confidence. 
We who have been called, each in his sphere, to carry out 
the details of the plans which you inaugurated, know, as 
others cannot know, the wisdom of your counsel, the readi- 



RETIREMENT FROM JOHNS HOPKINS 387 

ness of your sympathy, the strength of your faith. Your 
unswerving confidence in the future of the University has 
done everything to stay the hearts of those who feared the 
worst from fortune. The liberality, which you could not 
always hide, has made many things possible, which we 
should have had to renounce ; and the balance of your 
temper has harmonized the jar of conflicting interests and 
conflicting aims, inevitable in any great institution of 
learning. 

What the University would have been to-day if your 
plans had been furthered by the munificence that has been 
shown to other institutions of learning, we will not ask. 
This is a day of rejoicing that our life is whole within us, 
that our hearts still beat high, and our hands are still eager 
for work. That this is so, we owe in such measure to you 
that we, the members of the Faculty, desire to place in this 
Hall a permanent memorial of our first President, a worthy 
portrait of the man whose fame is indissolubly bound up 
with every fibre of the growth of the Johns Hopkins 
University. 

An interesting picture of the occasion is contained in a 
letter written by Mrs. Gilman to their daughters, who were 
then in Europe : 

The 22nd and the 25th Anniversary, and all the sur- 
rounding circumstances passed off beautifully. Your father 
was so showered upon by affection and appreciation and 
compliment and congratulation all day that he often looked 
as if he would like an umbrella. The thing that touched 
him most was the entirely unexpected address of the Faculty 
on the stage — delivered by Mr. Gildersleeve, whose voice 
often shook with emotion and was so full of loyal devotion 
and affection that I feared your father would hardly be able 
to respond. But he was perfectly charming. He took it smil- 
ingly and with a look of most surprised pleasure, and when 
he thanked them, as he did most warmly, he reminded the 
audience that no university president could do much alone 
and that he depended for his success entirely on the learn- 



388 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

ing, enthusiasm and distinction of his Faculty; " so," he 
concluded, " in their words of praise they are giving me 
what is truly their own." He could not have spoken better 
if he had had a week to study it in, and all day he was 
delightful. 

The University's twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated 
on February 21 and 22, 1902, with a quiet and imposing 
dignity which was most gratifying to all its friends. It was 
made the occasion of the formal installation of Mr. Gil- 
man's successor, President Remsen; and Mr. Gilman him- 
self figured as President Emeritus. The new and the old 
presidents made addresses; the history of the University 
was duly touched upon both by them and by distinguished 
representatives of other institutions. The most impressive 
moment of the celebration was that in which Professor 
Woodrow Wilson presented to Mr. Gilman a beautiful 
volume in which was engrossed " an address of affection 
and congratulation," bearing the signatures of more than 
a thousand of the Alumni and Faculty of the University. 
The opening words of the address are as follows : 

We, Members of the Johns Hopkins University, upon 
this the occasion of your laying down the burdens of your 
high office, greatly desiring to make formal acknowledgment 
of our personal obligation to you, unite in a common testi- 
monial of our respect, our gratitude, and our affection. 

We believe that the services which you have rendered 
to education have not been surpassed by those of any other 
American. If it be true that Thomas Jefferson first laid the 
broad foundation for American universities in his plans for 
the University of Virginia, it is no less true that you were 
the first to create and organize in America a university in 
which the discovery and dissemination of new truth were 
conceded a rank superior to mere instruction and in which 
the efficiency and value of research as an educational instru- 
ment were exemplified in the training of many investigators. 



RETIREMENT FROM JOHNS HOPKINS 389 

In this, your greatest achievement, you established in 
America a new and higher university ideal, whose essential 
feature was not stately edifices nor yet the mere association 
of pupils with learned and eminent teachers, but rather the 
education of trained and vigorous young minds through the 
search for truth under the guidance and with the coopera- 
tion of master-investigators, — societas magistrorum et dis- 
cipulorum. That your conception was intrinsically sound 
is attested not only by the fruitfulness of the institution in 
which it was embodied at Baltimore, but also by its influ- 
ence upon the development of the university ideal through- 
out our country and notably at our oldest and most distin- 
guished seats of learning. 

One more quotation must suffice — a portion of the 
address of President Eliot: 

Mr. President, twenty-five years ago I had the honor of 
congratulating President Gilman on his accession to the 
presidency of this University. We were both then in our 
prime, and I welcomed him to a task which I knew 
would call for all his devotion and all his wisdom. And 
now, President Gilman, I congratulate you on your 
achievement. . . . 

President Gilman, your first achievement here, with the 
help of your colleagues, your students, and your trustees, 
has been, to my thinking — and I have had good means 
of observation — the creation of a school of graduate 
studies, which not only has been in itself a strong and potent 
school, but which has lifted every other university in the 
country in its departments of arts and sciences. I want to 
testify that the graduate school of Harvard University, 
started feebly in 1870 and 1871, did not thrive until the 
example of Johns Hopkins forced our Faculty to put their 
strength into the development of our instruction for gradu- 
ates. And what was true of Harvard was true of every 
other university in the land which aspired to create an ad- 
vanced school of arts and sciences. 

Next, I congratulate you, sir, on the prodigious advance- 
ment of medical teaching which has resulted from the 



390 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

labors of the Johns Hopkins faculty of medicine. The 
twenty-five years just past are the most extraordinary 
twenty-five years in the whole history of our race. Nothing 
is done as it was done twenty-five years ago ; the whole 
social and industrial organization of our country has 
changed; the whole university organization of our country 
has changed, but among all the changes there is none greater 
than that wrought in the development of medical teaching 
and research; and these men whom you, sir, summoned 
here have led the way. . . . Among the achievements of 
Johns Hopkins University in the last twenty-five years, let 
this improvement of medical teaching be counted as one 
of superb beneficence. 

And thirdly, sir, I wish to mention as an achievement of 
this university under your leadership, that it has promoted, 
and taught others to promote, research, scientific investiga- 
tion, the careful probing of external nature and man's na- 
ture in the hope of discovering some new thing which may 
lead on to another new thing. This is a very genuine, sub- 
stantial and durable achievement of this young university, 
and I desire here to congratulate you all upon it, and to 
recognize the full scope and meaning of the policy which 
led to this great issue. 



As has been already said, there was no thought in Mr. 
Gilman's mind, when he decided to lay down the cares of 
the presidency of Johns Hopkins, that a new field would 
be opened for the exercise of his powers in the shaping and 
guidance of another great project for the promotion of 
knowledge. It happens to be possible to state the exact 
time, and the exact way, in which the possibility of a great 
gift by Mr. Carnegie, and Mr. Carnegie's desire to consult 
him on the subject, was brought to Mr. Gilman's knowl- 
edge. A letter from Andrew D. White, dated at the Em- 
bassy of the United States in Berlin, May 20, 1901 (six 
months after Mr. Gilman's letter of resignation), tells of 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 391 

talks that the writer had had <l in a certain quarter," on the 
project of the endowment of " a great American univer- 
sity " at Washington, and asks for Mr. Gilman's views on 
the subject. A postscript to the letter contains the first indi- 
cation of the identity of the person from whom the act of 
munificence was looked for; and besides thus showing how 
new the matter was to Mr. Gilman, it is exceedingly inter- 
esting in itself: 

P. S. You have doubtless divined the person above men- 
tioned. I have felt quite sure that you would, but under 
strict injunctions not to say anything about such a project 
being under discussion, I did not feel at liberty to mention 
the name. But this morning I received a letter which con- 
tains these words: " Please write Gilman and arrange meet- 
ing at Skibo. Middle of July will suit us. Mr. and Mrs. 
Gilman have already an invitation to visit us; make your 
own time. It would probably be best before the 12th of 
August, but September will suit us." . . . 

Let me hear from you fully, especially as to the time when 
you can meet me there. It is a chance for us to render to 
education and to our country the culminating service of our 
lives; and I am ready to throw down everything in order 
to do my part in presenting the matter. . . . 

I perhaps ought to add that Mr. C. has from the first 
expressed the wish that I consult and discuss with you, pre- 
paratory to a full discussion with him, and that he espe- 
cially requests that not a word be lisped as to any thought 
of, much less any actual discussion of any such plan as that 
herein referred to. 

Write me fully, I beg of you. Who knows that we may 
not meet again in council at Washington, and on the most 
important work with which either of us has had to do. 
What a winding up of our old relations, which have always 
been so close, that would be ! 

Owing in part to difficulties that lay in the way of his 
going to Europe, and in part to a certain reluctance, Mr. 
Gilman did not follow the suggestion of Mr. White, though 



392 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

he shared the youthful enthusiasm of his fellow-septuage- 
narian at the prospect of taking part in one more enterprise 
— and that the most splendid — for the advancement of the 
highest intellectual interests of his country and of the world. 
Accordingly it was not until November, 1901, that Mr. 
Gilman had his first interview with Mr. Carnegie on the 
great scheme. This took place, by appointment, at Mr. 
Carnegie's house in New York. That the plan of the pro- 
jected institution, while it had been engaging Mr. Carnegie's 
thoughts for some months, had not yet assumed anything 
like definite shape, is evident in many ways; and it appears 
from Mr. Gilman's letter, written to Mr. White immedi- 
ately after the interview, that Mr. Carnegie asked him and 
Dr. Billings, who was the only other person present, to pre- 
pare a paper embodying their ideas of what should be done. 
From the same letter it appears that Mr. Carnegie said to 
Mr. Gilman, at this first interview, " You must be Presi- 
dent." The whole scheme, however, evidently remained 
very much in the air for a time; the general impression in 
the country, derived doubtless from fragmentary indica- 
tions of what was afoot, was that some kind of university 
was to be founded. While nothing can be said authorita- 
tively as to the degree in which it was Mr. Gilman's judg- 
ment and influence that decided the shape the endowment 
finally took, there is no great risk in assuming that it 
was the weight of his counsel that had the chief share in 
determining the lines on which the Carnegie Institution was 
constructed, and entered upon its unique work in pro- 
moting the advancement of knowledge. Speaking of his 
first interview, Mr. Gilman says, in " The Launching of a 
University " : 

Mr. Carnegie raised many hard questions: How is it 
that knowledge is increased? How can rare intellects be 
discovered in the undeveloped stages? Where is the excep- 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 393 

tional man to be found? Would a new institution be re- 
garded as an injury to Johns Hopkins, or to Harvard, Yale, 
Columbia, or any other university? What should the term 
"knowledge" comprise? Who should be the managers 
of the institution? How broad or how restricted should be 
the terms of the gift? 

These are only examples of the perplexing problems 
which presented themselves to one who was not anxious 
for fame; not devoted to a hobby; not inclined to impose 
limitations, but who had an eye single to the good of his 
adopted country, and through our country to the good of 
the world. 

It will not do for me to tell at this time who were his 
chosen counsellors in the incipient stages of his plan, but 
they were many in number, including some whose names 
have not been publicly mentioned. Gradually the idea, 
which was seen at first in broad outlines only, took definite 
shape, as, under the sculptor's hands, an image becomes 
shapely, comely, and life-like. 

At the first meeting of the Trustees of the Carnegie Insti- 
tution, which was r held in Washington, January 29, 1902, 
Mr. Gilman was elected President of the Institution; and 
in an address to the Trustees he gave the following story 
of his preliminary connection with it, and of certain fea- 
tures of the situation which had developed in relation to 
the idea of a National University: x 

My first knowledge of Mr. Carnegie's intention to make 
this gift was at the end of November, when I went to his 
house, and Dr. Billings and I listened to his reflections on 
the whole subject and heard him say that he was prepared 
to give $10,000,000. It was very clear in his mind at that 
time that he did not wish to establish what we commonly 

1 The remarks were extemporaneous, and do not appear in the printed 
report of the proceedings of the meeting. The notes here (in part) re- 
produced were found among Mr. Gilman's papers, and appear to be a 
stenographic report. 



394 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

consider to be and what we call a university; I need not 
dwell on what we mean by that. We understood it, he 
understood it, and what we ordinarily call a university was 
no part of his plan. It was very attractive to him to think 
that a great deal could be done in our time by our people 
for the advancement of human knowledge. He was not 
unaware of the many great efforts that are now in progress. 
He especially knew what was being done by the Smithsonian 
Institution. The President of that Institution is an old 
friend of his. He knew of colleges, he knew something 
of independent funds; but they all put together amount to 
a sum very much below what he was willing to give, and 
without interfering with them, and supplementing them if 
necessary, adding to them if possible, he proposed to make 
this generous gift. He was also at that time desirous of 
aiming to help out men of extraordinary talent; not neces- 
sarily of extraordinary poverty, but of extraordinary tal- 
ent; if by any process such men can be discovered — that 
was his object. They need not necessarily be young men. 
He also thought of men of very considerable station, char- 
acter and attainments, who, as they grow older, are shelved, 
retired and have no opportunity to carry on their work; 
men of middle life, perhaps. He did not restrict the age. 
The point was to find if possible deserving men and help 
them forward. That was his idea at the first interview. 
Very soon he began to consult others, partly by letter, partly 
by special interviews, and presently he asked Mr. Hewitt, 
of New York, Mr. Walcott, the head of the Geological 
Survey, and Colonel Wright, the head of the Bureau of 
Labor, to act with him and Dr. Billings, as a kind of pre- 
liminary advisory committee; and we have had a great 
many interviews with him, formally and informally, two 
of them in Washington, the others in New York. The plan 
has been talked over in a great many details. 

There has been a very large amount of thought and care 
bestowed on the scope and purposes of this plan, which I 
will not enter upon now, for you and others will do so 
presently. 

There are two other factors that ought to be in your 
minds, because you will be asked about them, and it is very 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 395 

important that you should have very clear ideas of the rela- 
tions of this Institution in the future. 

In the first place, for a long period, — since 1873, cer- 
tainly, — Governor Hoyt and others working with him, 
including a very large number of the universities of the 
Western states, had been urging upon Congress the estab- 
lishment of a National University, and many of them were 
disappointed to see this, which they think might have gone 
to a National University, go instead to a separate institu- 
tion. We shall probably hear that. But I beg you to bear 
in mind that such a university as they have projected, as 
people commonly understand and speak of when they speak 
of the National University, is still left untouched. If Con- 
gress should see fit to establish a National University or, 
as Mr. Carnegie says in his letter yesterday, if others should 
see fit to do it, this does not interfere at all; it may even be 
helpful to his institution. That question is not touched at 
all by his gift. 

There is also another interesting movement which you 
should understand. Those of you who live in Washington 
know it very well, those who come from a distance may not 
clearly understand it. It is this: The patriotic women of 
this country, organized in various associations, informed 
the nation some years ago that the best thing they could do 
would be to put up a building in Washington as a memorial 
to his name. And they organized a committee, they in- 
duced subscriptions. They did not go very rapidly but they 
did get some subscriptions, and I have been told, although 
it may not be authentic, that they raised about $40,000. 
They expressed in their circulars the hope that this build- 
ing would be the central administrative building of the 
possible supposititious national university, — and, as you 
see, that was a little vague, because the national university 
did not exist. . . . 

Then the ladies in their historical association, joining 
with the scientific men of Washington, who were called the 
Washington Academy of Sciences — not merely of Wash- 
ington but of the country at large — formed another associ- 
ation, which bears the name, not of the Washington Me- 



396 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

morial Association, but the Washington Memorial Institu- 
tion. And in June last they organized to elect a chairman 
and secretary, very much as we have organized here. It 
was supposed all through the summer, until late in the 
autumn, that that institution would go forward, correspond 
with the various departments in Washington and announce 
to the young men of the country that they might come here 
and have these opportunities if they chose to avail them- 
selves of them. Then came the surprise of Mr. Carnegie's 
gift, so far transcending anything that anybody had thought 
of or hoped for that everything else has been at a stand- 
still, and there has been a great deal of curiosity, not only 
in Washington but throughout the country, to know what 
is going to happen. But you will observe that the field is 
still left for these ladies to put up their memorial building. 
Such a building is undoubtedly needed in Washington for 
the assembling of scientific and benevolent and patriotic 
societies that come here from time to time. Such a build- 
ing, if properly constructed, would be very useful, and, if the 
ladies should raise the money for it, I think all the world 
would rejoice if such a building was secured for the city of 
Washington. But what I want to impress on everybody 
here is that Mr. Carnegie's gift neither interferes with the 
idea of a national university, if it should ever come to the 
point again, nor does it interfere with these ladies who have 
been governed by their patriotic, enthusiastic and benevolent 
ideas of what can be done. I speak of them with admira- 
tion and respect for their purposes and efforts. Those are 
the antecedent facts. 

Now, as we began to talk it over, it was very clear that 
there were three great directions in which Mr. Carnegie's 
gift might be utilized. Without entering into details they 
are these : In the first place, distinctively, the encourage- 
ment of investigation, and, as he said over and again in his 
letter, that investigation is not to go forward in any one 
place, either in Washington or elsewhere, but is to be in 
cooperation with existing institutions wherever they may be 
prepared to carry on such work, whether here or elsewhere. 
That is the first thing — the advancement of research. 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 397 

A second thing was the encouragement of unusual talent 
where it can be secured. Nobody has tried to work out, 
so far as I know, the mode in which that talent might be 
encouraged, but the general notion is very clearly fixed that 
in some way or other special encouragement should be given 
to persons of unusual talent to devote themselves to this 
or that line of inquiry. 

And then the third purpose is to secure the publication 
of very extended memoirs, for which there is at present no 
adequate provision. Gentlemen in this room could tell you 
of many things that have been kept back from the public 
which we believe would be of great advantage to the world 
if they were printed. As it is, they have not yet been 
allowed to see the light. Those are the three things to 
which attention has been directed; — the advancement of 
knowledge; the encouragement of talent; and the publica- 
tion of results. 

I also, before I sit down, wish to name one other point, 
and that is the extreme desire of the founder, if I am 
authorized to speak for him, and of those who have been 
associated with him, to go before the world in a spirit of 
hearty cooperation. I cannot imagine anything like rivalry 
existing between this institution and any other which exists; 
but I can imagine a great many ways in which this institu- 
tion can be of service to existing institutions, and I think the 
first note of all our proceedings will be that of cooperation 
with what exists and welcoming other things that may be 
brought to our knowledge. If I had time I would expand 
a little on the opportunities, but it is hardly best to do so at 
the present moment. 



The general aim of the Carnegie Institution, the purposes 
which its magnificent income of half a million a year is 
designed to promote, are now well known, both through 
numerous statements and discussions and through the record 
of its actual work. However, it may not be out of place 
to reproduce here a concise statement which was officially 
issued soon after its foundation: 



398 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Among its aims are these: 

To increase the efficiency of the universities and other 
institutions of learning throughout the country by seeking 
to utilize and add to their existing facilities, and to aid 
teachers in the various institutions for experimental and 
other work in these institutions as far as practicable. 

To discover the invaluable and exceptional man in every 
department of study, whenever and wherever found, inside 
or outside of the schools, and enable him by financial aid to 
make the work for which he seems specially designed his 
life work. 

To promote original research, paying great attention 
thereto, as being one of the chief purposes of this institution. 

To increase facilities for higher education. 

To make more useful, to such students as may find Wash- 
ington the best point for their special studies, the museums, 
libraries, laboratories, observatory, meteorological, piscicul- 
tural and forestry schools, and kindred institutions of the 
several departments of the Government. 

To insure the prompt publication and distribution of the 
results of scientific investigation, a field considered to be 
highly important. 

Entrusted with the leading position in the administra- 
tion of this large and novel project, President Gilman de- 
voted himself with his old-time energy to enlarging his 
knowledge of the facts bearing on the problem before him 
and securing the advice and suggestions of able men in all 
departments of scientific effort. Besides consulting with 
the leaders in American science, he made a tour of Europe 
in the spring of 1902, during which he conversed with a 
large number of the foremost scientific men of the chief 
countries of Europe, and familiarized himself with many 
of the circumstances and factors bearing upon the work in 
which they were engaged. It did not turn out, however, 
that the organization of the institution was of such charac- 
ter as to give him that position of the unifying force — 
the agency by means of which all the streams of effort were 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 399 

coordinated and harmonized — to which he had been ac- 
customed in the past. The direction of affairs was in the 
hands of the Executive Committee; and, although Mr. 
Gilman was chairman of that committee, besides being 
President of the institution, yet the subordination of the 
latter office to the authority of the committee was such 
as not to give to the President the degree of initiative 
and of influence which Mr. Gilman felt to be necessary 
to the thoroughly successful execution of his functions. 
His usefulness to the Institution, not only in relation to 
the shaping of its purposes and general plan, but also 
in the actual conduct of its activities during its initial 
years, was of course very great, but the situation was not 
such as to fulfill Mr. Gilman's conception of the duties and 
opportunities of such a post. He had, naturally enough, 
indicated at the beginning that, assuming the duties of the 
presidency at such an advanced age, his tenure of the post 
would not be long; but his decision to resign was immedi- 
ately occasioned by the considerations that have just been 
mentioned. It is characteristic of him that he devoted the 
last portion of the time of his incumbency to an earnest 
effort to secure such modification of the by-laws of the Insti- 
tution as would make the status of his successor such as he 
felt it ought to be ; and, in point of fact, the by-laws were 
modified in the direction desired by Mr. Gilman, though 
not perhaps to the full extent of his propositions, at the 
close of his last year. Notice of his intention to resign at 
the end of his third year had been given by him a year be- 
fore, and the change was too late to affect his own action 
in any way. 

Mr. Gilman's resignation as President of the Carnegie 
Institution was formally presented and accepted at the meet- 
ing of the Board of Trustees, December 13, 1904. 

A few short letters may be appended to the foregoing 



4 oo LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

brief account of Mr. Gilman's connection with the Carnegie 
Institution: 

To Andrew D. White: 

Baltimore, December 7, 1901. 
My dear friend: 

I have sent you two letters recently showing the progress 
of the idea. Within the last week matters have moved with 
extreme rapidity, and I have not kept up with all the pro- 
ceedings. I presume everything will be made known next 
week and you will hear by cable before any word of mine 
can reach you. The plan has had various modifications, 
some of them originating with the principal factor, some 
of them urged upon him by others. The result is grand 
and its effect, if I am not mistaken, will be to inspire and 
strengthen every institution in the land. 

I think you will hear from our mutual friend, probably 
by cable, as soon as he is ready to speak. 

Baltimore, December 20, 1901. 

My dear A. D. W. : 

I saw our munificent friend on Monday in Washington, 
where he went for a conference with the President. 

Much opposition has developed on one point, the accept- 
ance by Congress of U. S. Steel Corp. bonds, and the donor 
withdraws the original form of his proposition. He re- 
turned at once to N. Y. intending to institute a private cor- 
poration; but I think it will take him some days to perfect 
this part of his plan. I notice that he is both deliberate 
and prompt; slow to form an opinion, — quick to give his 
opinions form. I am assured that his main purpose is as 
firm as ever. 

Baltimore, December 29, 1901. 

Dear A. D. W. : 

I have kept you informed of the progress of events. On 
Friday last, 27th, I met at the house of Mr. Carnegie, Mr. 
A. S. Hewitt, Dr. Billings and Mr. Walcott. Suggestions 
and counter suggestions were made, — - and finally the list 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 401 

of names of Trustees, and a brief statement, for their infor- 
mation. Of course your name has been at the front since 
the beginning. I hope you will cable to Mr. Carnegie your 
acceptance. The present plan is to incorporate in the Dist. 
of Columbia, next Saturday, January 4, elect the Directors, 
and call a meeting of them at an early day for organization. 
Not everything has gone on as you would prefer, nor as 
others would prefer, but on the whole I am delighted with 
the plan. 

To the family circle at Norwich: 

Feb. 2, 1902. 
As you told me that you were watching the papers, you 
have doubtless learned all that there is to be told of the 
plans of the C. I. of Washington, — and of my connection 
with it. This is the best opportunity for usefulness that has 
ever come to me, and it makes me feel as if I were forty 
once more. I see so much to do, and I am so happy to be 
a part in the doing. 

Mr. Carnegie to Mr. Gilman: 

Skibo Castle, October 27, 1902. 
Dear Principal: 

I shall not be present, I fear, at Annual Meeting, Wash- 
ington, as we do not reach New York until Nov. 27th. 
Very sorry. We have never been tied here so late by 
engagements. 

Andrew White was with us [at] St. Andrew's and got 
his degree; a great day — he was very well indeed. Shall 
see you soon after arrival, no doubt. Pray explain my ab- 
sence to your distinguished colleagues. I hope they can 
all attend. 

Do not forget the annual dinner together. Nothing cre- 
ates and maintains good fellowship like a common feast. 

One round, I ask it with a tear 
To him the one that 's far awa. 

Kind regards to Madam; hope she has recovered. 

Yours ever, 

Andrew Carnegie. 

z6 






402 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

New York, December 10, 1903. 
Dear Mr. President: 

We were fortunate enough to see your wife the morning 
we left, but I knew you were busy. It was a surprise to me 
that you felt it necessary to give up your labors. Two things 
I cannot deny. It is your duty to harbor your strength, and, 
second, that you will retire knowing that you have given 
the Institution a splendid start. You promised to remain 
Trustee — for so much, thanks. 

All great men have their special feature. If I were 
asked what yours was, I should say, that which draws all 
men after him, pleasing everybody and offending nobody, 
doing the absolutely necessary ungentle things in a gentle 
way. You illustrate the supreme force of gentleness, and 
among all that have benefited thereby, none more than your 
humble servant, with whom you have been uniformly gentle, 
even in your admonitions. 
/ like you. 

Yours always, 

Andrew Carnegie. 

December 19, 1904. 
I have received the documents you sent. Changes are 
always painful, especially such as accentuate the march of 
the grand procession, which never stops, and sweeps us all 
with it. You have one satisfaction, that every one of your 
colleagues in the Carnegie Institution rejoices in having had 
an opportunity to know you, and has placed you in the circle 
of his treasured. Among these, pray do not forget to count 

Yours ever, 

Andrew Carnegie. 

And, in lieu of comment, this chapter may fitly close 
with the letter in which Dr. Huntington welcomed Mr. 
Gilman to his new field of labor: 

Grace Church Rectory, New York, 
Feb. 1, 1902. 
Dear Dr. Gilman: 

I doubt whether there is another instance in history where 
one and the same man has been the leader in the founding 






CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 403 

of three great universities. I feel proud of you both as my 
countryman and as my neighbor. You have a right to take 
to yourself the closing portion of Tennyson's Ulysses, be- 
ginning with the words, " Come, my friends, 'T is not too 
late to seek a newer world," etc. Doubtless you know them 
by heart, but I trust that I am the first of your many friends 
to make this application of them. I congratulate you most 
heartily, and most heartily also I am yours, 

W. R. Huntington. 
President Gilman, 

Dilectissimus et ter reverendus. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 

It is not the design of this book to enter into the particulars 
of the personal history of Mr. Gilman, or to portray in 
detail his home life. In 1861, at the age of thirty, he mar- 
ried Miss Mary Ketcham, who died in 1869, leaving two 
daughters, Alice (now Mrs. Everett P. Wheeler), and Elis- 
abeth; and in 1877 ne married Miss Elisabeth Dwight 
Woolsey, who survives him. The first Mrs. Gilman was 
a woman of sweet and loving nature, who bore with patience 
and serenity the suffering that ill health brought to her 
during the latter part of her brief married life. In his 
second marriage Mr. Gilman found one who during more 
than thirty years was a devoted and sympathetic companion, 
the sharer of his interests in great affairs and of his home 
affections. When it is said that throughout his life his 
home, with its deep and constant affections, was ever a true 
refuge from the anxieties and strains of his manifold labors 
and responsibilities, all is said that need be said in a work 
of this character as to his domestic history. 

But even if no attempt be made to narrate the story of 
his family life, to omit all reference to the nature of it 
would be to leave untouched an element which is necessary 
to the portrayal of his character. So little was Mr. Gilman 
given to any manifestation of emotion, and so constant was 
his habit of personal reserve, that even men who were closely 
associated with him for many years were not likely to sus- 
pect that the tenderest attachment to his home circle played 
the part it did in his life. Indeed, he might easily have 
been supposed deficient in sentiment in general, were it not 
that on some rare occasion there would be a manifestation 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 405 

of deep emotion — as on occasions by no means rare there 
was the manifestation of practical kindness, sympathy and 
helpfulness — which showed that under that exterior of re- 
serve and reticence there were deep springs of feeling. But 
in his family affection is seen something more than this — 
there was in it a depth and constancy that are not often met 
with, and which are peculiarly touching in the case of a man 
of the masterful traits that distinguished Mr. Gilman. His 
deep attachment to his brothers and sisters, so manifest in 
the records of his boyhood, was preserved in all its inten- 
sity in his manhood and old age; and the love and devotion 
which pervaded his own immediate family circle formed the 
chief happiness of his life. 

A letter from his elder sister Maria, acknowledging the 
receipt of a photograph of Mr. Gilman when he was ap- 
proaching his seventy-fifth birthday, may serve to indicate 
the nature of the feeling between him and his sisters and 
brothers: 

Mch. 4, 1906. 

" Facing 75 ! " 

Yes, but facing it, with courage, hope, and good cheer! 
Not idly looking back on unfinished work — not bemoaning 
what might have been, but standing firm in the present, res- 
olutely looking forward, assured that 

" The best is yet to be — 
The whole of life for which the first was planned — " 

That dear face that I have loved these many years, since 
the July day when Grandma told me that I had a new little 
brother — that face that I have seen grow in strength and 
sweetness — that has ever beamed on me with love and 
sympathy, helping me to move on steadily through all 
vicissitudes. 

I cannot put into words all that I read in this picture of 
the past, the present and the future — while gratitude is 
uppermost in my heart for such a brother. 



406 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

The family all like the photograph, but I am going to 
keep it for my very own — and while it stays in my room 
I shall take many excursions with you, my dear brother, 
beginning in the old garden in Washington St. and extend- 
ing far and wide, by river side and mountains and through 
crowded city streets. We always had plenty to talk about ! 
Always shall — I believe — here or there — 

While I remain your fond old sister, Maria. 



Another sister had gone out to California to help him 
supply, to the little daughters, the place of the mother they 
had lost. One of his letters to her gives brief expression 
to his feeling of what she had done for him and the children : 

University of California, 
Oakland, Cal., May 16, 1873. 
My dear Louise : 

One of the last acts before I surrender this house shall 
be the writing of a line to you, thanking you with all my 
heart for your cooperation this winter. I know you did not 
want to come, but from the moment when you decided to do 
so you have generously and unselfishly entered with enthu- 
siasm into all my plans, and I feel as I have often said that 
not only the children and I but the University is greatly 
indebted to you for coming and helping. I think that in 
no six months of their lives have our little folks been better 
physically and morally than they have been here, and they 
owe to your incessant watchfulness and care their daily 
health and happiness. You don't like to have me say very 
much, so I forbear, for if I should try to add all I think, 
I suppose that even California would not contain the books 
which I might write in your praise ! so give my best love 
to Maria and Emily, thank them for letting you come, hold 
yourself ready for what will turn up next, keep a sharp 
eye to Alice and Lizzie, and believe me ever 
Your grateful and devoted brother, 

D. C. G. 



HOME LIFE AiND PERSONAL TRAITS 407 

Along with this may go another letter to his sister Louise, 
written on the day when his youngest daughter had been 
confirmed: 



Balt., Mch. 24. 80. 

My dear Louise : 

I haven't seen all the notes (one which I did see was 
just right) from your pen to which I have heard allusions 
within a few days; but I am sure you have been with us in 
thought, and that we should all have enjoyed having you with 
us today when our Lizzie (not much longer to be called 
"little") confirmed the engagements made for her long 
ago. Have you happened to think that she is at just the 
age of Alice when she came forward, and that both of them 
were twelve years old, the very age at which their Master 
declared that he must be about his Father's business. You 
would be pleased if you could see how the seed which you 
planted in Lizzie's heart is steadily maturing, and how 
sweetly and naturally, without any urgency from others, she 
desires to be a full participant in all the promises. She has 
had gentle teaching, these last three winters, — teaching quite 
in accord with what you used to give. Dr. Hodges of St. 
Pauls Church is discreet and considerate and has left " the 
instructions " which the rules require, almost exclusively to 
motherly lips; so I don't think Lizzie has any very sharp 
idea of ecclesiastical differences, but thinks that the outside 
variances are quite secondary and that in reality she is now 
at one with you and me, and her grand parents, and Alice, 
quite as much as with those to whose forms of worship she 
is now conforming. 

Ever your loving 

D. C. G. 



A few of his letters to his daughters during their child- 
hood are given below, in chronological order. The letters 
of the summer of 1876, when the Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity was about to be opened, were written to them while they 
were travelling in Europe with their aunt Louise. 



408 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

~ A Denver, August 21, 1872. 

Dear Alice and Lizzie : 

After I wrote you from St. Louis we took the cars, and 
kept travelling to the West for two days and nights, sleeping 
quite comfortably in the Pullman car and getting very good 
meals, three times a day, at the railroad stations. 

The first part of our way lay along the South bank of 
the Missouri River, and was very pleasant. By and by we 
came to Jefferson City, where we saw the state house, with 
its big dome, on the river bank visible a great way off For 
lunch we had delicious peaches, pears and grapes, which I 
should have been glad to share with you. 

About 1 1 o'clock Monday Eve? we passed through Kan- 
sas City and soon after entered the state of Kansas. It took 
us two nights and a day to cross this state, the eastern part 
ot which is very beautiful, but the western is part of a dry 
weary plain, almost as level as the sea. It was a dull ride 
but we had books and fruit and easy chairs and were not 
much tired by it. Occasionally we saw buffaloes, first three 
then one, then a herd. We saw a great many cattle grazing 
and in one drove we were told there were three or four 
thousand As we crossed the Plains we were all the while 
rising higher and higher and at Denver this morning we 
were more than 5000 feet above the sea. 

As we came near the town we saw Pike's Peak on the 
south and Long's Peak north, and a range of mountains 
stretching for nearly two hundred miles before us, many of 
the peaks being over 10,000 feet high and some of them 
near 15,000. 

I don't suppose little Lizzie can understand these big 
figures and Alice can hardly appreciate what they mean, but 
Aunt Louise will be interested in them, and if Aunt Maria 
could only see the peaks themselves, I am not sure but 
she would try to jump as high as they are. 

We have spent today in a carriage ride of forty miles 
to lurkey Creek Canon, and to Golden City, a ride full of 
fine views. 

I enclose for Alice a picture of Denver, and the moun- 
tains in the distance west of it, and for Lizzie a picture of 
the real way to ride papoose-back. There are Ute squaws 
here and this shows how they carry their babies. 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 409 

Tell Aunt Emmie that I thought that this was a good 
place to buy some Indian portraits for Miss Thomas and so 
I have chosen a few for her wh. I mail with this letter. 

Tomorrow we set out for Cheyenne and Salt Lake City, 
where we hope to spend next Sunday. 

Alice may send this note to Grandma, with my love, if 
she thinks it will be interesting. 

Ever your loving father. 

University of California, 
Oakland, Cal., Sept. 14, 1873. 
My dear little Lizzie : 

This is a bright Sunday morning, and I am sitting at the 
open window on the front of the new Hotel looking toward 
the college buildings and to the Berkeley Hills beyond. 
By my side are the colored pictures of Alice and you, and on 
the mirror frame over the mantel are two of the later pho- 
tographs, — and in my pocket, on the left side of my coat, 
very near you know what, is the little card photograph with 
Alice and you in one picture. So you see that tho' you are 
far away and I cannot hear your voice, I have your face 
before me all the while. Almost every one who comes into 
my room says " these are your little girls " and they seem to 
think that I seem to think a great deal of you. I rather 
think they are right ! Since last Sunday, I have rec c J a very 
nice note from you, dictated to one of your Aunties at New- 
port, and telling me about Berkeley Avenue and Berkeley 
Rocks and Berkeley Organ, and asking about Berkeley Col- 
lege and how it is getting along. 

I went there yesterday with Mr. Hallidie and with Dr. 
Storrs of New York (H. M.) and with Dr. Movar. The 
wooden building of which you saw the corner stone laid is 
now done. My office is carpeted, and my books are in the 
book case. The black-board on which you used to write is 
there ready for you to use next winter and the chairs are in the 
recitation rooms. In a few days we shall have a telegraphic 
wire right to the buildings, and / should not wonder if one 
of the first messages sent across that wire would go to two 
little girls in Connecticut from their loving Papa. The 
grounds are still rough, but we are going to put a gang of 



4 io LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Chinamen to work on them soon. The brick building like- 
wise is almost ready to be occupied. In ten days more, the 
students will come together and college will begin. After 
that I hope to be set free and to take the overland train for 
the East to see if I can find two little girls in Connecticut 
who want to see their Papa. I saw Helen & Frank Webb, 
last Sunday, and Shafter Howard on Thursday (Maud and 
Carlie are away with their mother) and I saw the Grays not 
long ago. Give much love to your dear aunties, and remem- 
ber that I am always 

Your loving Papa. 

Richmond, July 2, 1876, and the thermometer at 94, 
Sunday after church. We have had a week of the nineties 
and I have tried them in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Staunton 
and Richmond, and there is n't much to choose. Fortu- 
nately I have kept busy and well. Thursday night, at ten, 
I took the Pullman, which carried me to Charlottesville, 
and there at early morning I joined Professor Gildersleeve 
and we went to Staunton, arriving there about eight o'clock. 
During the morning we had several callers (though I can't 
say there was any great enthusiasm about the J. H. U.) and 
in the afternoon we took a delightful drive around the en- 
virons. Our guide was Major J. W. Hotchkiss, who had 
been first on Lee's and then on Stonewall Jackson's staff, a 
topographic engineer familiar with every nook of the coun- 
try and with the story of the battles. Staunton is a beauti- 
ful town, between the Blue Ridge and the North Moun- 
tain, in the upper part of the great Shenandoah valley which 
was traversed so many times by both armies, in the late 
war. Mr. Gildersleeve pointed out the spot where he was 
wounded and lamed for life. It seemed strange to me to 
be escorted over such scenes by two ex-confederates, but 
they talked over the war and the results as coolly as if it 
was the war of 1776. Mr. Gildersleeve quoted with appro- 
bation two Commencement speeches at the University of 
Virginia where the Union and Slavery were referred to in 
true northern terms. R. W. Emerson " straightened up " 
as he heard such sentences. His own appearance as a Com- 
mencement Orator was noteworthy. Our evening was spent 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 411 

at the home of Dr. Sears (Peabody Education Fund agent), 
looking from his doorstep on seventy five miles of the Blue 
Ridge, and hearing his story of the progress of the South. 
By night ride again we came here from Staunton. In the 
morning we saw the Governor, School Superintendent Ruff- 
ner and various other officials, visited Houdon's statue of 
Washington, Crawford's Washington, the new monument 
to Stonewall Jackson, etc. In the afternoon we drove to 
the Libby Prison, Jefferson Davis's house, the Cemetery, 
etc., etc., Mr. Gildersleeve acting as guide, aided by a black 
coachman who told the tale of the war with great volubility. 
In the evening came a tea party, and in the course of it 
a call on Mrs. Lewis, who met me like an old old friend, 
though I never saw her before. . . . 

Raleigh, N. C, July 5. 
My dear Sister and Children: 

I wrote you from Richmond on Sunday. I thought that 
letters from you would reach me there, but they did not, 
and my last tidings are those which announce your arrival 
in Oxford. The weather has been our extreme summer 
heat, so that this journey has not been exhilarating, and to 
me the lively recollection of the war, called out by the sight 
of so many places familiar hitherto by their names alone, 
— and the free conversation of the Southerners in respect 
to all that has occurred, — all this has made the journey 
somewhat depressing. I am amazed, however, to see how 
little of ill feeling remains; men and battles and affairs are 
talked over by the people we have met, as if we were speak- 
ing of the Revolution instead of the Civil War. 

Baltimore, July 23, 1876. 
My own dear Lizzie : 

I came " home " last evening: but it is a queer kind of 
home to come to, no Alice, no Lizzie, no Aunty Lou; but 
a colored boy on the door step, and Mr. Chancellor as de- 
mure as possible in the office, and an empty room, hot and 
close, with a package of more than thirty letters to be looked 
into. I ran my fingers over them quickly and spied the Paris 
postmark, and Alice's direction, and within the envelope 



4 i2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

I found your note of July 2, and her note of July 5, and 
Aunty Lou's of the same date; and very quickly I forgot 
that I was alone and thought I was in Paris keeping your 
June birthday in the Bois de Boulogne, with red, white and 
blue posies and the May children, and three Aunties and 
one sister; and then that I was climbing to the top of the 
Pantheon with Aunt Maria and you; and then that I heard 
you ask the waiter for de l'eau, s'il vous plait, and heard 
the lady in whose house you are tell you in French that you 
were a good little girl. This morning when I woke up, I 
was just as far away from you as ever; but I have a right 
good time in knowing that you all are having right good 
times, and that next winter you will have scores of lively 
stories to tell me as we look over the photographs and 
read the diaries together. 

We have had very warm weather lately, and Mr. Syl- 
vester has gone to England to cool off. But today there 
has been a change and the air reminds me of California 
spring. I saw, a few days ago, Mr. Wilkinson, who told me 
about Maud and asked me about you and sent his love to 
you; and this evening I have been with Dr. Thomas to 
Mr. Cheston's, where we were in the spring, and I have 
had answered many questions about you all. Before long 
I hope to see your Grandpa and Grandma, and New Haven 
cousins. You are very good, and Alice too, to write me so 
often. I know it is hard work, especially for you; but it 
gives much pleasure to your ownie 

Papa. 

Baltimore, October 1, 1876. 

My dear Sister and Children: 

Here it is October 1, — the month has come when you 
are to return, and already I begin to think of the greetings 
we shall give one another a few weeks hence. I want you 
here right away! So much is transpiring that I cannot put 
upon paper, of a kind that would interest you. The last 
month has been full of interest and excitement, but not of a 
kind to describe. One by one, the professors, associates 
and fellows have been assembling and I have heard their 
confidential stories of hope, and regret, and desires and 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 413 

aims, — till I seem to myself to be a great repository of 
secrets, — or rather of confidences. Most of them I have 
invited to dine or to tea, and not a few have spent long 
evenings with me in the rooms you know as Mr. Johnson's. 
I could not have shared all this with you, but some things 
about it you would all have enjoyed. — Charlie Lanman 
sits here now as I write, just after dinner, and interposes 
all sorts of comments on matters new and old. This even- 
ing, our young California friend Royce is to take tea with 
me. Professor Remsen went to Mr. Jones's with me this 
morning. After church I went to see Dr. Martin, who is 
laid up with a chill, and at breakfast Professor Sylvester 
opened his budget and unfolded it till nearly ten o'clock. 
On Friday last I had a little dinner party for Dr. Billings, 
who is about sailing for Europe as the representative of 
the J. H. Hospital people. I shall give him your address 
and he thinks he may lodge at the West. P. Hotel. Pro- 
fessor Newcomb came from Washington also, and we had 
our professors, — and Howard's ebony face gleamed with 
delight as the ox-tail soup was praised, — little dreaming 
of the dire announcement which was to reach him at the end 
of the dinner. But our new landlord late in the evening 
told Howard that he and Jerry and Wesley and all the 
sable tribe which supplied us in their leisurely way with beef- 
steaks and ice-creams, were to close up and leave at the 
end of twenty-four hours. So yesterday there were part- 
ings and pangs, alleviated by occasional fees, — and this 
morning there are new faces in the restaurant from head- 
man down. 

Tuesday evening we assemble and meet together, Pro- 
fessors, Fellows, scholars and all. The gathering is to be 
informal and social, — but in the course of it I intend to 
make a few brief remarks. Our main rooms are all in 
order, the office carpeted — the other rooms furnished with 
desks and chairs. Our library is well begun. Books and 
instruments arrive by every steamer, and before next Sun- 
day the wheels will all be in motion. The result of years 
and months of planning will soon appear. 

So no more, till next time 

from your most loving 

D. C. G. 



4 i4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT OILMAN 

.VlLLENEUVE, August 12 [1877]. 

My dear Alice : 

I must write you a special letter, which you need not 
show to any body else, of thanks for your capital letters, 
to Mamma and to me, during all our tour. They are so 
frequent, so frank and full, so loving and so bright that 
we take the greatest pleasure in them. I am glad you are 
having so good a summer. All you tell about it seems just 
right. The readings in Norwich and the ridings in New 
Haven are both excellent for you. I wish I could have 
seen you at the head of the eight grandchildren around 
Grandma's table. I look forward with eagerness to next 
winter, when we shall have so many nice readings together. 
We are already homeward bound. We shall not again be 
so high up or so far off as we have been. Before next Sun- 
day we hope to reach Paris. 

This is a most resting day. The house is quite empty — 
though there is to be an English service in the parlor - 
the sky is bright, and the Lake looks tranquil and inviting 
as ever. Our rooms overlook the gardens, and the lake and 
the hills, — and we shall take plenty of refreshment in the 
midst of all this enjoyment. 

Goodbye, my own most loving Alice. 

Your loving father, 

D. C. G. 

And now it is just ten years since I heard a little cry and 
saw a little face and found my own darling little child, who 
was to be a delight to her dear mother for nearly two years, 
— and then for many years more to her dear father, and 
sister, and many other friends. I hurried to the telegraph 
office and sent word to Grandpa, that he had another grand- 
child, and very soon his answer came back with some loving 
words. I remember how Grandma Gilman when she heard 
you were to have her name and be a new Elizabeth sent you 
a silver spoon and knife and fork, and how more than a year 
later your dear mother chose for you a cup and wrote for it 
a loving inscription which she thought you would one day 
read with pleasure. I remember how fond you were of the 
pansies which grew in our door yard and how you delighted 
to pick them and bring them. You were ill one season and 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 415 

then were quite well again — and this made your mamma say 
that you were once her Pensee and were now her Heart's Ease. 
Aunty Lou can tell you just how she said it. I remember 
how good Aunty Lou and Aunt Lizzie and many more we;re 
when you were sick; and how the hope of making you strong 
and well made me listen with favor to the California invita- 
tion. I remember much more which I will not tell you now, 
— for I want to say a word about the days to come, and teil 
you that I hope the next ten years will be even happier 
than the last, and that you will really become " a happy useful 
Christian woman." You know whose wish that was. This 
birthday of yours always brings to mind another birthday 
more than 1800 years ago. I never fail to think that the 
Mother's name was Mary and her nearest friend Elizabeth. 
You may guess if you can all the rest of the thoughts of 
your loving father and your new loving mother, as I write 
from Newport, Dec. 25, 1877. 

May 14, 1905. 
Dearest Alice : 

If weeks were marked as days are marked Red in the cal- 
endars, I should find last week so distinguished because 
I have twice been seated at my daughter's table ! It is de- 
lightful to see you in your own home, and the quiet hour 
that we three spent together on Wednesday before the 
Bishop's friendly incursion will not soon be forgotten. 

There is little to report since we left you, except an in- 
formal dinner given to Dr. Osier last evening by a few of 
those who have been most closely associated with him in 
the Medical Faculty of J. H. U. We sat down fourteen 
in number, including all the medical professors, Barker and 
Thayer the elect, and one or two outsiders. My seat was 
next to Dr. Osier, and we had a most interesting talk on 
Baltimore, — Oxford, — Books, — Colleagues, — Succes- 
sors, — and so on without any reference to Age or Speeches. 
He would not consent to any formalities, so we only drank 
his health standing and he said a few words in recognition 
of the compliment. He sails next Friday on the White Star, 
and he expects to come and spend some weeks here next 
winter. . . . 



4i 6 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

The year's work in Baltimore was so engrossing, and each 
day so full of engagements, that Mr. Gilman looked for- 
ward with especial zest and pleasure to the summer, which 
gave him not only rest but also freedom for more varied 
occupations. Between 1875 and 1908 he spent seven sum- 
mers in Europe, and one in Alaska and California, besides 
the long winter holiday, 1889-90, when he took his family 
on a noteworthy trip to the countries bordering on the Med- 
iterranean; but it was to the island of Mount Desert that 
his thoughts usually turned in anticipation or in retrospect of 
the enjoyment of vacation days. The summer of 1881 was 
spent at Bar Harbor, but it was not until 1885 that he 
learned to know Northeast Harbor, when he and Mrs. 
Gilman made a visit to President and Mrs. Eliot. They 
were so charmed by the beauty of the place, the simplicity 
of the life, the group of pleasant people whom they met, 
that they decided to come the following summer with their 
family to a little hotel at Northeast Harbor. Thus began, 
in 1886, the delightful summer life which continued for 
more than twenty years. At the hotel, the life was like 
that of a large family, many persons being really cousins, 
and others friendly and congenial, so that very naturally 
a custom arose of Mr. Gilman reading aloud for an hour 
after breakfast. It was most informal, a dozen persons 
sometimes sharing with the family the pleasure of hearing 
some book of history or travel, which Mr. Gilman had 
chosen with care before leaving home. Even this descrip- 
tion makes it sound more formal than it really was, and it 
is only mentioned as characteristic of the pleasant circle of 
friends, of whom Mr. Gilman was in many ways the leader, 
and of his desire to redeem an hour each day for something 
really worth while to young and old. 

After a few years, life in a hotel, however enjoyable, did 
not seem the best plan for a three months' sojourn, and Mr. 
Gilman bought land and built a cottage, — literally on a 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 417 

rocky cliff and therefore given the name " Over-Edge." 
Here for many years was found the most complete home 
life possible for Mr. and Mrs. Gilman and their two daugh- 
ters; and Mrs. Gilman's two sisters, the Miss Woolseys (the 
elder better known under the name of Susan Coolidge), 
spent several summers with them. Here Mr. Gilman could 
have his study with his books and maps at hand, where, 
after the morning reading with the family, he would be ab- 
sorbed not only by the correspondence for the Johns Hop- 
kins and in preparing speeches and annual reports, but also 
in more substantial pieces of work, — in particular his in- 
troduction to de Tocqueville and his life of James D. Dana. 
The afternoons were spent in walking, climbing, driving, 
rowing or sailing. Mr. Gilman used often to say that a 
sail-boat was as good a place for conversation as a dinner- 
table, and it was certainly true when, among others, such 
brilliant talkers were brought together as Mrs. Caspar 
Wistar, the Miss Irwins, Professor George Fisher, Bishop 
Hall and Dr. William R. Huntington. The two founders 
of Northeast Harbor were Bishop Doane and President 
Eliot, and from them grew an ever-widening circle of 
friends, ecclesiastical and literary. It used to be amusing 
to count how many bishops and college presidents had been 
at Northeast Harbor during a single summer, and it was 
sometimes six or eight of each profession. With such men 
as leaders it was not surprising that many good things began 
to take shape, and Mr. Gilman was among the foremost in 
planning and in helping forward the best interests of the 
community. As Dr. Cornelius Smith, one of his Northeast 
Harbor friends, said of Mr. Gilman after his death: " He 
touched so many things, and to everything he touched he 
gave life." Such a summer community as that of North- 
east Harbor demanded a high type of library. A number 
of people subscribed fifty dollars each for a capital fund, 
others raised money by entertainments, so that land was 



4 i 8 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

bought and a good building erected. The library was sup- 
ported by yearly subscriptions and by an occasional benefit 
entertainment for the purchase of new books. Mr. Gilman 
was one of a small body of directors, and gave much time 
to the selection of books and in advising the librarian as 
to methods, etc. A characteristic incident is remembered. 
One year the question arose of closing the library on the 
Fourth of July and giving the librarian a holiday. Mr. 
Gilman, who felt that the quiet of the room might on that 
day be especially agreeable to some of the members, did 
not oppose the measure, but quietly took the place of the 
librarian himself, so that both results were obtained. 

Mr. Gilman's relations with the permanent residents of 
the place were most pleasant. " We always call him 'our 
President,' " said one of the sea-captains, " he treats us as 
if we were gentlemen." Following these natural relations 
with the people of the place came the wish to make North- 
east Harbor a more desirable residence all the year round. 
Mr. Gilman served for many years as director of the Village 
Improvement Society and had much to do with the starting 
of the Neighborhood House. He realized the need of a 
social meeting place throughout the year, where books, 
games and lectures could be enjoyed, and to this cause he 
gave liberally of his time and his money. Nothing was too 
small for his sympathetic cooperation, if it promised to give 
help to others. He showed an understanding of and regard 
for the best interests and aspirations of the place, which 
endeared him to the community. Perhaps the service for 
which the permanent residents expressed most gratitude 
was his interest and help in the establishment of a High 
School. In 1905 the young people of Northeast and Seal 
Harbors had only the lower school grades, and for High 
School instruction they had to leave the village from Mon- 
day to Friday, which entailed not only expense, but the 
dangers of too great liberty for the scholars. A special 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 419 

town meeting was called to consider the subject, at which 
both Dr. William R. Huntington and Mr. Gilman spoke. 
Their words had great weight, both as enunciating proper 
educational principles and as showing that the summer resi- 
dents were willing to have their tax-rate raised when it was 
for the general welfare. The scheme went through, and 
when, a few weeks later, the young High School master 
arrived, Mr. Gilman gave him many helpful suggestions 
for the benefit of the school. A few weeks later the teacher 
wrote that the name " Gilman School " had been chosen, 
and in spite of persuasion to give it the name of some his- 
toric worthy, it so remains. 

These and other activities made Northeast Harbor full 
of interest to Mr. Gilman and his family, but the greatest 
charm lay in the home life at " Over-Edge." The wide 
verandah, with its view of hills and sea and islands, was 
a delightful gathering place, and Mr. Gilman had the lei- 
sure in summer, which he sometimes lacked in winter, for 
social intercourse with his friends. Many interesting topics 
were discussed, many wise plans were formed. Here three 
of his friends, who had been friends for fifty years, — 
Professor Fisher of Yale, Archdeacon Tiffany of New York 
and President White of Cornell, — would enjoy coming 
and talking over things new and old. Among the many 
other visitors at " Over-Edge," besides the Mount Desert 
circle already mentioned, may be named, to indicate the 
wide variety of friends and interests that came together 
there, President Adams of the University of Wisconsin, 
Judge Gray of Delaware, Bishop McKay Smith of Penn- 
sylvania, Dr. Manning of New York, Mr. Rhodes the 
historian, Dr. Frizzell of Hampton, Dr. Cuthbert Hall 
of the Union Theological Seminary, and Dr. George Adam 
Smith of Glasgow. " A man that hath friends must 
shew himself friendly," and Mr. Gilman's true interest in 
other people's careers and projects was one of his most 



4 20 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

marked characteristics. Bishop Satterlee conferred with 
him long and earnestly at Northeast Harbor about the 
plans for the Washington Cathedral, and persuaded him 
that though he was a member of the Congregational 
Church, he was needed on the Chapter of the Cathedral. 
Dr. Welch came from the Johns Hopkins to plan for the 
Memorial Fund for Major Reed, the discoverer of the 
germ of Yellow Fever, and Mr. Gilman called a meeting at 
Bar Harbor to further this undertaking. 

The topography and history of the island greatly inter- 
ested Mr. Gilman. The possibility, if not the probability, 
that Talleyrand was a native of Mount Desert; the early 
landing of the Jesuits at the mouth of Somes' Sound; Cham- 
plain's discovery of the island, — all these gave historic 
interest to drives and sailing parties. A number of North- 
east Harborites joined with Mr. Gilman in having a brass 
tablet placed on a boulder, to commemorate the three hun- 
dredth anniversary of Champlain's discovery. A notable 
company gathered on the rocky headland one beautiful 
summer day in 1906 to unveil the monument. Speeches 
were made and verses read, but to some of the spectators 
the most beautiful memory is that of Mr. Gilman's per- 
sonal pleasure in the accomplishment of this pious act of 
recognition. 

It may be seen from all this that the summers on Mount 
Desert counted for much more than a mere escape from the 
heat of the city and from the pressing labors of the uni- 
versity year. They have been dwelt on at some length be- 
cause they really formed, for about twenty-five years, a very 
important part of Mr. Gilman's life. 



At this place may be mentioned a little social organiza- 
tion which, the outgrowth of one of his public-spirited efforts 
and itself the source of a number of useful activities, was 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 421 

in its personal aspect one of the real pleasures of Mr. Gil- 
man's later years. His energetic interposition for the saving 
of the Mercantile Library has been mentioned in a previous 
chapter. One of the younger men whose cooperation he 
enlisted in this work has written down his recollections of 
what Mr. Gilman did for the reorganized Library, and how, 
out of the associations thus formed, arose the '91 Club: 

He drew about him a group of a dozen young men to 
take up the management. He assigned the duties of the 
directors or owners and of the managers or guardians of 
the Library; spent hours among the thirty thousand vol- 
umes, culling out the more valuable and giving away dupli- 
cates, with suggestions for new books and periodicals, for 
brighter rooms and more pleasant surroundings. He in- 
spired all with the freshness of his ideas and the novelty of 
the pleasant arrangements and set the stamp of his personal- 
ity upon the whole enterprise, from which thousands have 
since benefited. ... So it was that two or three years later, 
on a certain evening in January, 1891, six or eight of that 
young group were invited to the McCoy residence on Eutaw 
Place, into which the President of Johns Hopkins had lately 
moved. We were asked to look over and talk over some of 
the treasures of the library which the late owner had housed 
in a special addition to his home. Here the talk was of 
books, pictures, politics, civic improvement, university ideals; 
any fresh, live topic was welcomed. It was determined at 
once that the members present should form a club. There 
were to be no officers elected and no constitution or by-laws 
framed, but it was unanimously felt that Mr. Gilman should 
be the head, and one of those present offered to act as 
Secretary. 

Three or four meetings were held each winter at irregular 
intervals. There was a simple dinner and afterwards a 
round-the-table talk, when members or distinguished visitors 
specially invited might speak at any length they chose, but 
always quite informally, on some special subject. The 



422 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

number forming the circle increased by natural growth, 
without any formal election, to twenty, the membership cov- 
ering a wide range of professions and pursuits. Among 
the guests at different times were scholars like Jebb, 
Butcher, Sidney Lee and Brunetiere, church dignitaries like 
Cardinal Gibbons and Bishops Brooks and Potter, and 
others whose talk brought the Club into contact with large 
and varied aspects of the world. Among the members 
themselves, in addition to the social and intellectual pleas- 
ure of the meetings, there arose out of them in more than 
one direction the initial impulse to civic movements of 
importance. 

The member of the '91 Club above quoted gives this 
account of Mr. Gilman's personal traits and his appearance 
at this time of his life: 

Most suggestive and inspiring he was to young people, 
young women as well as young men. He never seemed 
bored in their company, and with children he seemed ever 
at home; quickly catching their attention, listening to their 
talk and in the gentlest way entering into their sports, and 
bringing himself to their level. 

On a holiday he was the best of company always; an ex- 
cellent traveller, most enthusiastic, and his enjoyment of 
nature was as simple as that of a child. 

To include a description of his appearance in recent years: 
One remembers a man above middle height, with a well- 
developed frame, and broad, though slightly stooping shoul- 
ders; the head with extraordinary breadth of brow, square 
rather than dome-like, eyes keen and penetrating, ever- 
changing, full of insight and sympathy. His walk was quick, 
and there was energy in all his movements; his eyes espe- 
cially bright and full of hearty greeting. He would rarely 
walk for the pleasure of walking; his walks were taken to 
reach his destination, and so perhaps he walked consider- 
ably in his busy life, but bodily exercise in the open air did 
not interest him for exercise sake. There was usually a pur- 



HOME LIFE AND PERSOiNAL TRAITS 423 

pose in his movements; his steps would catch the notice of 
passers by, and betokened the thinker, the mind more active 
than the body. 

No one present at the last gathering of the '91 Club at 
his house can forget the gracious words with which he made 
them welcome and bade them Godspeed at parting. With 
characteristic forgetfulness of self, he put aside physical 
suffering and was never more tranquil. 

The occasion was in the winter of 1907-08, when a 
commemorative medal in the form of a bronze portrait 
of the President was presented to Mrs. Gilman by the Club, 
the legend whereon was "Educator — Citizen — Friend." 



One can but regret that in telling the story of the life- 
work of Mr. Gilman so little can be added from records 
of intimate intercourse to what is to be obtained from the 
direct history of the work itself. The play of his inner 
thoughts and feelings in connection with the problems with 
which he was dealing, the men and events he was control- 
ling or influencing, is caught only here and there, through 
some brief expression which he happens to have permitted 
himself. A letter from his brother William C. Gilman to 
Mrs. Gilman may be quoted in evidence at once of this 
reserve that was so constant a trait in him and of other 
qualities of which it would be pleasant to be able to say 
more, were the material obtainable : 

Norwich, April 7, 1909. 
We all know and recall in conversation many things of 
which, fortunately or unfortunately, there remains not a 
single written word. His experience in the library, for in- 
stance, how hard he tried, against what discouragements, 
to make it a means of education and not a mere collection 
of books : — his long continued intimate relations with 

Mr. in the cause of common schools, — what a bore 

this very excellent and public-spirited man was, — how he 
came to Daniel's room at night because he could find no 



4 2 4 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

room in a hotel, took possession of his bed, leaving him to 
camp out on the lounge and read poetry to him, because 
he could not sleep ! his fight in New Haven, when he was 
in the board of education, to prevent the diversion of the 
public money to the support of Roman Catholic schools; — 
his confidential intercourse with Mr. Sheffield. 

Such reminiscences would enliven the narrative, if there 
were any recorded facts to support one's recollections, which 
after fifty years are indefinite. 

He might have written something like this, — "I shall 
see you soon and will then say more." When he came to 
New York he would have a private conversation with 
Maria, strictly confidential, — another, late in the evening, 
equally confidential, with our father; if time permitted, a 
few cryptic words, equally private, with one or another of 
the family, and then he would be gone the next day. Yet, 
all the while, he was as affectionate and pleasant and enter- 
taining as he could be, interested in the details of family 
life, sympathetic, kind, generous, never disputatious, — 
but always reserved. This habitual reticence continued, 
perhaps increased, through his life. We have felt for years 
that we were completely isolated from him in every respect, 
except affection, and that — the best thing in the world — 
we were always sure of. Not only about the important 
affairs in which he was engaged and the men with whom 
he was intimately associated, but about public affairs, public 
men, the questions of the day, he was cautious in expres- 
sions of opinion, — too much so, I sometimes thought. He 
was quick to recognize and commend what was good, — 
but he was discriminating, and unless it was his duty to make 
an unfavorable comment he could " smiling put the question 
by " and maintain a discreet silence in several different lan- 
guages, ancient and modern. 



After his resignation of the presidency of the Carnegie 
Institution, at the end of the year 1904, Mr. Gilman was 
not charged with administrative responsibilities, but he con- 
tinued to be busily occupied with the public interests which 
he had served so long, and also wrote a number of reviews 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 425 

and other articles. Among these may be specially mentioned 
the series of articles embodying interesting recollections of 
the formative years of the Johns Hopkins which appeared 
in Scribner's Magazine and were afterwards included in 
" The Launching of a University." It was only in the last 
year of his life that failing health caused him to abandon the 
active attention which he had so long been accustomed to 
give to such work as that connected with the Slater and Pea- 
body funds, the General Education Board, etc. At the age 
of seventy-five and seventy-six he was as assiduous as ever in 
his attendance at the meetings of these boards, and would 
make the trip to New York to attend them as a matter of 
course. His interest in the Carnegie Institution likewise 
continued, and he attended regularly the meetings of the 
trustees of the Institution. His appointment as a Trustee 
of that remarkable benefaction, the Russell Sage Founda- 
tion, occurred in 1907, when he was in his seventy-sixth 
year; and he continued to be President of the National 
Civil Service Reform League until within a year of his 
death. He found an opportunity, in these last years, to 
render a valuable service to Baltimore; for it was at his 
instigation that Mr. Carnegie made his gift of a beautiful 
building for the Maryland Institute. Among the latest 
special movements in which he was interested may be men- 
tioned that which has for its object the creation of a worthy 
memorial to Carl Schurz. Even in the last year of his life, 
when he was subject to periods of illness and often had 
little physical strength, he manifested the same devotion to 
the highest objects that had marked his life from the be- 
ginning; and when he was able to take part in affairs, the 
same quality of clear thought and efficient action was 
manifest. 

In the pages contributed by Mrs. Gilman to this volume, 
and placed at the close of the biography, the European 
journey which occupied the last six months of Mr. Gilman's 



426 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

life has been touched upon in a manner that makes any 
further reference to it more than superfluous. It formed 
a beautiful and serene last chapter in a life full of energetic 
and almost unremitting activity. Nothing could be a more 
fitting close to such a life than, after happy wanderings over 
the world in whose external aspects and whose historic 
records he had all his life taken so keen an interest, in the 
company of those to whom he was bound by ties of such 
perfect affection, to return, cheerful and hopeful, to the 
beloved home of his childhood, and there pass away with- 
out a struggle and almost without warning. 



Mr. Gilman died at Norwich, October 13, 1908, having 
arrived there only the day before, after landing at New 
York October 7, on his return from the European tour. He 
was buried in Yantic Cemetery, where his remains rest with 
those of his forefathers. 

A multitude of letters came to Mrs. Gilman, bearing 
tributes of sincere affection, gratitude and honor of which 
it is needless to convey an idea. An extract from the letter 
written by Mr. Henry Holt is of distinctive character: 

I have often thought lately that if at our meeting as boy 
and girl which I so vividly remember, we had invoked for 
you, and him, the best life we could, we could not have been 
wise enough to equal what the reality has been. I cannot 
think of any American life of the time that has been more 
important than the one to which it was your privilege to 
give happiness and inspiration. 

A few lines from Dr. Osier's letter may also be set down: 

Paris, October 16, 1909. 
I have just seen in the Times the announcement of the 
death of my dear friend — or rather Mrs. Osier read it out 
— and I exclaimed from my heart, My father! My father! 



HOME LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS 427 

the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof! My next 
feeling was one of gratitude that he should have been able 
to do so much for higher education in America and for 
medical education. A splendid life and a splendid work! 
We of the medical profession owe him an everlasting debt 
of gratitude. Not of us, he was always with us, heart and 
soul, and it was always a great satisfaction to me to feel 
that he knew we appreciated his efforts on behalf of the 
Medical School. The start on sound lines which he gave 
the Hospital was one of the best things he ever did. What 
memories of those happy days come up ! Little did we think 
that so much would be accomplished in so short a time. 

And out of the many other letters, the following from 
Professor Griffin, dean of the College Faculty of Johns 
Hopkins, is given, not only because of the deep and sincere 
feeling which pervades it, but because it brings out vividly 
the nature of a personal relation of peculiar delicacy cover- 
ing many years : 

Baltimore, October 25, 1908. 
My dear Mrs. Gilman: 

You have so many letters from friends at a distance that 
it hardly seems right for one close at hand to add to the 
number, but I have thought so often of you, in your return 
to your empty house, that I cannot help sending you a word 
to tell you how well I understand what it is that you have 
to go through, and how earnestly I sympathise with 
you. . . . 

I cannot begin to tell you the honor and affection and 
gratitude which I have for Mr. Gilman, and ever shall have, 
while I live. As I look back over the many years of my 
association with him — meeting him, not daily, but many 
times a day — I can recall nothing which it is not a pleasure 
to remember. Under all the stress of care that was upon 
him, and amid all the perplexing and vexatious details with 
which the president of a university must deal, I never knew 
him to lose his self-command, or the poise of his judgment, 
or to show any lack of courtesy, or do anything unjust or 



428 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

unkind. It is impossible to conceive anything more nearly 
ideal than his relations with his official subordinates. He 
always spoke of his professors as his " colleagues," and he 
treated them as such, in very fact, seldom using words of 
authority, but taking them into his confidence, and working 
with them in the spirit of cooperation and comradeship. 
As a consequence, he secured a kind of service which could 
not be commanded and could not be bought. 

I never knew any one who was more quick to recognize 
merit, and was more delighted when good work was done, 
and was more ready to help forward, in every possible way, 
any one worth helping. His nature was too magnanimous 
to harbor jealousy, or to act under any kind of unworthy 
motive. No one could see him often, and talk with him 
confidentially, without learning lessons of honor and gener- 
osity and high-mindedness. To me personally, he was the 
truest and kindest of friends, from the beginning until the 
end. I shall miss him sadly. I know that, with his depart- 
ure, much has gone out of my life. 

I have recalled, during these past days, his reply to me 
when I spoke of Mr. Stewart's death in a way that implied 
regret that it should have come so suddenly. His dissent 
was so emphatic that I felt it as a reproof for my thought- 
lessness, and I know that the call came to him in the very 
way which he would have chosen. Is it not the way we 
would all choose if the choice were permitted us? . . . 
Most sincerely yours, 

Edward H. Griffin. 



AN AFTERWORD 



When a life of seventy-seven years comes to an end we 
say " He lived long," and yet the time has gone quickly to 
one to whom each new day was an opportunity. To us who 
sum up the life of Mr. Gilman it seems almost without a 
flaw, and yet he was conscious of many imperfections, and 
more than once as he drew near his end he said: " I have 
not done my best"; "I have not made the most of my 
life "; and " We only learn how to live when it comes time 
to go." This was no morbid or self-conscious regret, but 
the conviction of a man of lofty ideals who shot high be- 
cause his aim was the stars. In the race of life he made no 
account of the difficulties or embarrassments he had en- 
countered; he saw only far ahead the goal he could not win. 

He was born with a quick and ardent energy which would 
carry him over many obstacles, and with time and discipline 
he had learned great patience which could bear with long 
delay and many drawbacks and yet never lose the end in 
view. This was naturally partly due to a sanguine and 
hopeful disposition, but the root was still deeper in his un- 
shakable faith in God's providence, which soon or late 
would prosper all good purposes and bring good out of 
apparent evil. When fair prospects were clouded by mis- 
fortune, he would often say, " The Lord reigns," and found 
in that strength and courage. 

When so unusual and so influential a personality is taken 
from us, we ask ourselves the difficult question, " In what 
did this man differ from other men, and whence did he 
derive his peculiar characteristics?" As we read of his 
early life, it is evident that from his father he inherited the 



430 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

sympathetic altruism which led him at an early age and 
throughout his long life to take an active and energetic 
interest in all schemes of philanthropy or charity, or for the 
educational and moral uplift of his fellow-men. He gave 
to such subjects his best and most earnest thought, and all 
those who have worked with him have felt the urging stim- 
ulus of his suggestions and cooperation. But whence did 
he derive that intuitive estimate of the real character of 
the men who surrounded him, the sympathetic insight which 
enabled him to detect the latent strength in the midst of 
apparent weakness, the germ of talent hidden in failure? 
This was part of the secret of his influence with other men. 
He discovered them to themselves. He never wearied in 
his sympathy with those who were earnestly trying to find 
the clue to a better life than the one they were leading, and 
often showed them a road to success. After his death came 
many letters which testified to the value of his counsel at 
some critical moment. More than one wrote that his suc- 
cess in life was due to the impulse given by Mr. Gilman's 
advice and aid; one wrote, " I owe to him thirty-two happy 
years." 

He believed in happiness as an end and aim, but to him 
happiness meant no mere physical indulgence or enjoyment, 
but the sense of work performed or well undertaken, free 
converse with minds of earnest intelligence, travel, and new 
experience, and, above all, the home! 

There he was at his best. As he put his latch-key into 
the door when work was over, he entered into his sanctuary 
of repose and pleasure. The disturbances of the day might 
have been many, the labors of the day heavy, but they 
dropped from him like a cloak at the threshold. There 
were no backward glances, no tired tones in his voice. All 
the household knew that with the coming of the master 
came a new freshness of enjoyment and peace. 



AN AFTERWORD 431 

He loved punctuality and regular hours. He seldom 
worked in the evenings and never discussed difficult affairs, 
if he could possibly avoid it, after the day's work was done. 
His family life was too precious to him to be marred by the 
anxieties and perplexities of the hours of labor. He was 
a sound sleeper, kept early hours and awoke every morning 
renovated and ready to take up life again with energy. 

He was a kind and just master, never familiar, but always 
courteous with those in his employment. He exacted excel- 
lent service and received it, and not only was respected but 
much loved by all who served him. His servants were 
always his devoted and admiring friends, quick to perceive 
his needs and eager to meet his suggestions. Perhaps his 
invariable appeal to the best in every one with whom he 
had dealings was a tribute as well as an appeal. Assuredly 
it acted as such. One of his old and attached servants said 
of him, " We respected him and he respected us." 

Into this home life of punctuality, leisure and repose — 
a life which absolutely met his cravings — Mr. Gilman de- 
lighted to welcome his friends. Hospitality with him was 
not only a privilege but a duty. He loved to see around his 
table friends young and old as well as strangers who came 
with proper credentials. Many distinguished men of many 
nationalities were welcomed there, and many thoughts 
which proved the germs of future enterprise have been 
dropped half unconsciously under the stimulus of his appre- 
ciative interest. 

He delighted in conversation, but abhorred the gossip 
and trivialities which too often usurp its place, and the 
double entente and malicious innuendo were received with 
cold displeasure. As Mr. Gildersleeve has said, " His pres- 
ence was a bright presence and a pure presence." One of 
his friends has written lately of his life at " Over-Edge " : 
" What a story that house could tell of the interesting and 
notable people that have been under that roof; of the 



432 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

1 good talk ' which he led with such skill that he brought 
out the best that every one had to give. I have often noticed 
with admiration how he guided the conversation into the 
right channels, away from the trivial and unimportant, and 
so naturally and simply that I am sure that almost no one 
suspected how complete was his control." 

In conversation, as in literature, he demanded the best. 
One of his admonitions to his children and to all young 
people who came under his influence was, " Strike always 
and in everything for the best; never be satisfied with the 
second-best." 

Mr. Gilman was a great reader and was endowed with 
that desirable quality of reading very rapidly, passing 
slightly by the less important pages and never forgetting 
what was truly valuable, so that months or years after 
reading a book he could turn to a page or paragraph with 
deft precision. His books were indeed his tools, and he 
handled them with accuracy and skill. 

He had always looked forward to the last years of his 
life as to be spent largely in his library, but the disqualifi- 
cations of old age held long aloof and his keen and active 
interests outside the limits of his home lasted until very 
nearly the end. 

He was endowed by nature with a vigorous and sound 
constitution and had had few illnesses, so that it was only 
within the last year of his life that his physical powers began 
to weaken. The winter of 1907 and 1908 was a time, not 
of much suffering, but of impediment and discomfort. 
There was no cloud of apprehension or dismay, but those 
who were constantly with him detected a new note in his 
plans for the future. He would say, " I hope you will do 
thus and so," and when the eager interruption would come, 
" And you too," he would smile and say, " Oh, yes, I too, 
if I am here." 

There was never a word of complaint or murmur of 



AN AFTERWORD 433 

weariness. He took the enforced confinement and change 
of his daily life with unabated courage, and amused and 
interested himself with his pen and book and in examining 
and arranging the huge mass of correspondence which had 
grown up around him into almost unmanageable proportions. 

A summer abroad had been planned, but under these new 
circumstances would have been abandoned but for his de- 
termination. On the twenty-ninth of March, 1908, with 
his wife and daughter he sailed for Naples, stopping en 
route at the Azores and Madeira. Mr. Gilman enjoyed 
every step of the way. These wonderful islands of the sea 
with their glorious vegetation delighted him, and through 
the entire summer he enjoyed the sight-seeing and the daily 
drives and excursions. He more than once said that it was 
the pleasantest of all his many trips to Europe and would 
sum up at night, " One more delightful day." 

His health seemed to improve greatly. He had not the 
vigor of even one year ago, but he regained the habit of 
uninterrupted sleep and had an excellent appetite, and the 
lameness, which had been a great impediment in the winter, 
disappeared to a great extent, so that he turned his face 
homeward with a vigorous desire to get back to work. 

His friends who saw him on his arrival were struck by 
the improvement in his appearance, and it seemed as if a 
good winter was beginning for him, when on the seventh 
day after his arrival suddenly and without premonition 
" God took him." He had no fear of death, but a great 
fear of the disabilities and infirmities of old age, so that 
even those nearest to him felt in his sudden going from 
them as if his prayers had been granted. 

Of his beautiful fatherhood and of the complete unself- 
ishness of his life of service and self-surrender I have not 
spoken. These are memories to be cherished in the secret 
places of the hearts he loved best. 

28 



434 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN 

Among his papers was found a copy recently made of this 
extract from the " Monologen " of Schleiermacher in the 
" History of the Church " by Hagenbach. It is a portrait 
picture of those last days: 

" I will keep my spirits without flagging to the end of 
my days. The fresh courage of life shall never forsake 
me. What gladdens me now shall gladden me always. My 
will shall continue firm and my imagination vivid. Nothing 
shall snatch from me the magic key which opens to me 
those doors of the invisible world which are filled with mys- 
tery, and the fire of love in my heart shall never grow dim. 
I shall never experience the dreaded weakness of old age. 
I will treat with noble disdain every adversity which assails 
the aim of my existence, and I promise myself eternal 
youth." 

E. D. W. G. 



INDEX 



INDEX 1 



Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, 

119, 139, 163. 
Acland, Sir Henry, 292. 
Acta Mathematica, 377. 
Acton, Lord, 349. 
Adams, C. K., 331, 419. 

-, H. E., 311. 

Adgate, Thomas, 2. 

Adler, Felix, 342. 

Agassiz, Louis, visit to San Francisco, 

119-120; memorial meeting, 163. 
Agricultural Experiment Stations, 103. 
Agricultural Land Scrip, Henry George 

quoted on, 145-146. 
Alvord, William, quoted, 150-151. 
American Bible Society, 268. 
American Chemical Journal, founded, 

230. 
American Geographical Society, 57. 
American Journal of Science and Arts, 

Si- 
American Journal of Education, 42. 
American Journal of Mathematics, 

founded, 230-231. 
A merican Journal of Philology, founded, 

230. 
American Oriental Society, 57, 268. 
American Social Science Association, 

267, 268. 
Andrews, Rev. William Watson, 35. 
Angell, James B., consulted by Hopkins 

Trustees, 193, 194-195; letter from, 

347- 
Armstrong, General, quoted, 28. 
Arnold, Matthew, 374-375. 

, Thomas, 375. 

Ashburner, William, 168. 

Association for the Advancement of 

Science, 164. 
Atlanta Exposition, 269. 
Avery, Benjamin P., 149; letters from, 

quoted, 150, 151. 

Bacon, Dr. Leonard, 57. 

Baltimore, Lowell quoted on hospitality 

of, 238; 240, 284; Gilman's interest 

in life of city, 268, 311. 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 224; 

financial difficulties of, 307-308. 
Baltimore Charter Commission, 269; 

Gilman's services as member of, 271- 



Baltimore School Board, 269. 

Barker, Dr. L. F., 415. 

Barth, Heinrich, 57. 

Beach, John S., 95. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 29. 

Bellows, Rev. H. W., 35; Tompkins' 

letter to, quoted, 113-114; 116. 
Berkeley, removal of University of 

California to, 127-129; life at, 135. 
Berkeley, Bishop, Gilman's interest in, 

69; 128, 129; Gilman's lecture on, 

135; t-2,7- 

Berkeley Club, 124-125; 140. 

Bessey, Professor, 136. 

Bill, Captain Ephraim, 1. 

Billings, Dr., 234, 253, 256; consulted 
by Carnegie, 392, 393; 400, 413. 

, Frederick, 129. 

Bolander, H. W., 123, 143, 170. 

Booth, Governor, 136, 162; quoted, 
171-172. 

Brace, Charles Loring, 13; letter from 
Gilman to, 13-14. 

Brackett, Jeffrey R., 275. 

Brewer, David J., quoted on Venezue- 
lan Commission, 269-271. 

, William H., 44, 72, 92, 115, 116, 

136. 

Brewster, Sir David, 291. 

Bright, James W., 311. 

, John, 16, 322, 323, 324. 

Brooks, William K., 252. 

, Bishop Phillips, 334, 422. 

Brown, John, 65. 

, Judge G. W., 230, 237, 325, 376. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 51. 

, Robert, 51. 

Brunetiere, F., 239, 422. 

Brunton, Sir Lauder, 222. 

Brush, George J., 43, 44, 66, 68, 72; 
his work for Yale Scientific School, 
83, 84, 85; 92, 93, 94; letter from 
Gilman to, 191-192; letter from, 347- 

348; 357- 
Bryce, James, Gilman's first meeting 

with, 199; 200; letters from, 348- 

352. 
Buchanan, President, 58, 73. 
Buckingham, Senator, 104. 
Bulletin, San Francisco, quoted, 153. 
Bushnell, Dr. Horace, 29, 58. 
2 72> 276. Butler, Nicolas Murray, 315. 

1 This index was prepared by Miss Lettice Latane, to whom I am also indebted for most valuabb 
assistance throughout the work. — F. F. 






438 



INDEX 



California, 113, 132, 175; Gilman's 
first visit to, 106, 1 18-120; his ap- 
preciation of, 121, 139-141; his arti- 
cle on, 164. 

, College of, absorption into Uni- 
versity of California, no, in; 112, 

"3, I3 1 - 

, University of, history and gov- 
ernment of, no— in; faculty, in; 
character of Regents, 111-113; Gil- 
man elected President of, 113-115, 
101, 102; Gilman declines presidency, 
94, 116-117; election of President 
Durant, 117; retirement of Durant, 
118; second election of Gilman, 118, 
105-106; visited by Gilman, 1 18-120; 
endowment of Agassiz Professorship, 
120; inauguration of Gilman, 121- 
122; difficulties of situation, 122-123; 
Toland Medical College affiliated 
with, 126; California College of Phar- 
macy affiliated with, 127; removal to 
Berkeley, 127-129; commencement 
exercises, 1873, 129-130; alleged 
neglect of mechanic arts, 131-134; 
fife at, 135-137; gifts to, 141; for- 
mation of Lick Educational Trust, 
142; political complications, 142- 
154; building of College of Letters, 
144-145; attacked by Henry George, 
145-147; activity of Regents in Gran- 
ger controversy, 148-149; investiga- 
tion of Assembly Committee, 152-153; 
trouble from Profs. Swinton and 
Carr, 157-159; Gilman's resignation 
offered and withdrawn, 159-161 ; Carr 
refuses to resign and is dropped, 166; 
Hilgard appointed Professor of Agri- 
culture, 166; faculty appointments 
under Gilman, 168-169; Gilman's 
resignation, 171-172; LeConte Act- 
ing President, 173-174; Gilman's 
farewell address quoted, 174-179; 
Gilman's services to, 179-181. 

Carmany, John H., 140. 

Carnegie, Andrew, 279, 384; desires to 
consult Gilman on great gift, 390- 
391; problems considered by, 392- 
393; ideas of, in regard to Institu- 
tion, 393-397, 400; letters to Gilman, 
353, 401-402; gift to Maryland 
Institute, 425. 

Carnegie Institution, 267, 326, 327, 384; 
beginnings of, 390-392, 400, 401; 
Gilman's influence in determining 
character of, 392; first meeting of 
Trustees of, 393; Gilman elected 
President of, 393; address to Trustees 
quoted, 393-397; relation of, to Na- 
tional University, 395; relation of, 



to Washington Memorial Institute, 
396; main objects of, 396-398; power 
of Executive Committee of, 399; 
Gilman's resignation, 399, 402, 425; 
Gilman's continued interest in, 425. 

Carr, Ezra S., elected Professor of Agri- 
culture in University of California, 
in; trouble caused by, 143, 146, 
I 56, 157-159, 162; resignation of, re- 
quested and refused, 166; dropped 
from faculty, 166; 167, 169, 170, 172. 

Catholic Apostolic Church, 35. 

Cayley, Arthur, 211. 

Champlain, memorial tablet to, on Mt. 
Desert, 420. 

Charity Organization Society of Balti- 
more, formation of, 268, 274; 275- 
276; Gilman's defence of, 277-278. 

of London, 268; Gilman attends 

meeting of, 293. 

Cheston, Galloway, letters to, from 
Gilman, 205-207, 209-211; 412. 

Child, Francis J., 234, 237, 238; letters 
from, 235-236, 353-355- 

Christian Union, 283. 

Churchman, 287. 

Cleveland, Grover, 268, 269, 271. 

Clifton, considered as site for Hopkins 
University, 193, 200, 225, 306. 

"Club, The," New Haven, 57, 58, 87. 

Cobden, Richard, 322, 323, 324; letters 
from, 16-17, 355-356. 

Coit, Alfred, 80. 

, Daniel Lathrop, 1, 4. 

, John, 1. 

Colby, Frank Moore, 273. 

Congregalionalist, 99. 

Connecticut Academy, 57. 

Connecticut General Assembly, 84, 99. 

Connecticut State Board of Education, 
Gilman appointed Secretary of, 80-81 ; 
first annual report of, 81-82. 

Cooley, Judge, 234, 235. 

Coolidge, Susan, 417. 

Cooper, Rev. Jacob, 21; letters to, 
from Gilman, 67, 74-75, 79, 88, 96- 
97, 384-385- 

Cooper Medical College, 127. 

Copernicus, commemoration of, in Cra- 
cow, 297, 298-299. 

Cornell University, 90, 91, 222, 324, 328. 

Coudert, Frederic R., 2S6. 

Councilman, Dr. William T., 253. 

Cracow, University of, 400th anniver- 
sary of, described in Gilman's letters, 
294-299. 

Craig, Thomas, 376, 377. 

Daily Evening Post, San Francisco, edi- 
torials of, quoted, 145-147. 



INDEX 



439 



Dana, Professor and Mrs. James D., 
Gilman's intimacy with, 41; 8, 13, 42, 
64, 79, 84, 93, 108; letters to, from 
Gilman, 46-49, 65-66, 67-68; Gil- 
man's biography of Dana, 57, 273, 
417. 

Darwin, George, 211. 

Davidson, Professor George, 119. 

De Forest, Robert W., letter to, from 
Gilman, 278-279; 280. 

De Toqueville, "Democracy in Amer- 
ica," 273; 417. 

Dolly Varden Party, make-up of, 142; 

153, 154- 
Donaldson, Professor H. H., 252. 
Doane, Bishop, 417. 
Dublin, Tercentenary of University of, 

286-288. 
Dudley, Gov. Thomas, 2. 
Durant, Professor, 117, 118. 
Dwight, Dr. Timothy, quoted, 5; 9, 

44, 3°2, 303, 305. 
Dwinelle, John W., letters from, quoted, 

143-144, 148-149; 158, 172. 

Eaton, Daniel C., 44. 

, General John, 102. 

Elective system at Hopkins, 226-227. 

Eliot, Charles W., consulted by Hop- 
kins Trustees, 193-194; 101, 166, 235, 
325, 352, 416, 417; letters from, 356- 
357; address at Hopkins quoted, 257, 
389-390. 

Emerson, R. W., 410. 

Enoch Pratt Free Library, 269. 

Estee, Speaker, 148. 

Evening Post, N. Y., 342; editorial on 
Gilman's retirement quoted, 382- 

383- 
Ewart, Professor, 292. 
Exeter, N. H., 1. 

Farrar, Sir William, 292. 
Fellowships at Hopkins, 228-229. 

Ferrers, , 211. 

Fisher, George P., 57, 66, 417, 419. 
Folsom, Charles, 15. 
Foster, Sir Michael, 247. 
Freeman, Edward A., quoted on Car- 
thage, 2S4. 
Frizzell, Dr., 419. 

Gager, William, 2. 

Gaither, George R., quoted, 271-272. 

Garrett, Mary E., gift to Medical 

School, 252-253; Sargent painting 

presented by, 254. 
Garrison, W. P., letter from, 357. 
Geikie, Sir Archibald, 290. 
General Education Board, 425. 



George, Henry, editorials of, quoted, 

I4S-I47- . 

German universities, graduate work of 
Hopkins permeated by spirit of, 196, 
227; 247. 

Gibbons, Cardinal, 422. 

Gibbs, Professor, 57. 

Gildersleeve, Basil L., first professor at 
Hopkins, 215; correspondence with 
Gilman quoted, 216; editor of Amer- 
ican Journal of Philology, 230; letters 
from, 358-360; 231, 234, 237, 238, 
363, 376, 387, 4io, 411, 43i- 

Gillman, Alexander, 289, 290. 

Gilman, Alice, see Wheeler, Mrs. Ever- 
ett P. 

, Daniel Coit, ancestry, 1-2; par- 
entage, 2-4; born in Norwich, Conn., 
4; early schools, 4-6; removal to 
New York, 6; first editorial work, 7; 
enters Yale, 8; college life, 9-15, 321- 
322; philanthropic interests, n-13; 
influence of father, n, 429-430; re- 
ligious nature, 13-14; graduate stu- 
dent at Harvard, 15; sails for Eu- 
rope with A. D. White, 15; address 
at Manchester, England, 16-17, 322- 
324; Paris, 17-21; attache at St. 
Petersburg, 21-27, 334~335; inti- 
macy with his sister Maria, 27; 
choice of career, 30—31; considers 
entering the ministry, 28-30, 35-38; 
winter in Berlin, 32-35; commis- 
sioner to Paris Exposition, 38; re- 
turn to America, 38, 39. 

New Haven: variety of activities, 
39-40; faith in "new education," 40; 
work for Yale Scientific School, 40, 
41; articles on scientific education, 
41-42; social life, 43-44; Assistant 
Librarian of Yale, 42-43; Acting 
School Visitor, 44-45; trip to Europe, 
45-51; second appointment as Act- 
ing School Visitor, 52; Librarian of 
Yale College, 53; arranges art ex- 
hibit, 54-57; interest in geography, 
57; address at Norwich Bi-centen- 
nial, 60; improvements effected by 
him in public schools, 60-64; con- 
siders editorial work, 66-67; re- 
cruiting sergeant of Norton Cadets, 
70; marriage to Mary Ketcham, 
70, 366-367, 404; effort to secure 
land grant for Scientific School, 
72; appointed Professor of Physi- 
cal Geography, 58, 73-74; as a 
teacher, 74; difficulties of position as 
Librarian, 75-77; resignation as Li- 
brarian, 77-79; continued interest in 
Library, 79-80; Secretary to State 



440 



INDEX 



Board of Education, 80-81; Secretary 
of Scientific School, 82-87, 324; de- 
clines call to presidency of University 
of Wisconsin, 87-88; various articles 
and addresses, 88-89; death of Mrs. 
Gilman, 91-92, 94, 404; declines call 
to California, 94; lectures at Prince- 
ton, 96-97; work for Yale Corpo- 
ration bill, 98-101; candidate of 
"Young Yale" for presidency, 101; 
his work for Scientific School appre- 
ciated, 102; appointed by U. S. 
Commissioner of Education to visit 
Scientific Schools, 102-103; daugh- 
ter's illness, 105, 106; accepts second 
call to California, 106; resignation 
from Yale, 106-108; success of his 
work, 108-109. 

California: first election to presi- 
dency of University of California, 
113-117; second election accepted, 
118; visits California, 1 18-120; in- 
auguration, 121-122; difficulties of 
situation, 122-123; urges co-opera- 
tion between common schools and 
University, 123-124; founds Berke- 
ley Club, 124-125; impression of per- 
sonality at this time, 125-126; in- 
terest in professional education, 126- 
127; commencement address (1873), 
quoted, 129-130; public lectures on 
technical education, 132; as admin- 
istrator, 134-135; intercourse with 
students, 135-136; addresses to stu- 
dents, 137-139; interest in Califor- 
nia, 139-141; involved in Granger 
controversy, 142-154; addresses Leg- 
islature, 151-152; his feelings con- 
cerning the situation, 154-156, 186; 
discusses his own future, 156-157; 
presents and withdraws letter of 
resignation, 159-161; dissatisfaction 
with conditions, 162-163; various lec- 
tures^ 163-164; project for "San 
Francisco Union," 164-165; address 
on university education quoted, 167- 
168; interest in Hopkins Trustees, 
170; resigns, 1 71-172; farewell gath- 
erings, 173-174; farewell address 
quoted, 174-179; California's debt 
to him, 179-181. 

Baltimore: first allusion to Balti- 
more, 157; correspondence with Hop- 
kins Trustees, 184-187; first meeting 
with Trustees, 187-189, 191; "the 
one man" for President, 194-195; 
to establish a true university his ob- 
ject, 182-183, 188, 196; interview 
with Rowland, 197-198; sails for Eu- 
rope, 198; letters to Trustees from 



Europe, 198-21 1; Sylvester suggested, 
212-215; correspondence with Gil- 
dersleeve, 215-216; appointment of 
first faculty, 216-218; meets Huxley, 
222-223; ideas concerning University 
buildings, 224; urges publication of 
scientific journals, 229-231; alertness 
for discovery of possibilities, 239; 
interest in Lanier, 240-244; plans 
for Hopkins Medical School, 245; in- 
augural address quoted on Medical 
School, 245-247; deep interest in 
medical education, 247-248; advo- 
cates preliminary medical course 
and high standards of admission, 
248-250; his account of origin of 
Medical School quoted, 251-254; his 
contribution to medical education, 
2 S4-257, 427; appointed Director of 
Hopkins Hospital, 260; services as 
Director, 260-263; defines relation 
of Medical School to Hospital in let- 
ter to Trustees, 263-267; strain on 
health, 260, 283; second marriage, 
referred to, 281 ; 404; European trips, 
281-299; Mediterranean tour, 283- 
285; attends Tercentenary of Uni- 
versity of Dublin, 286-288; Scot- 
land, 288-292; London, 292-293; 
attends Cracow celebration, 294- 
299; declines call to presidency of 
Mass. Institute of Technology, 300- 
302; approached on matter of Yale 
presidency, 302-305; called to super- 
intendency of New York schools, 308- 
319; protests on all sides against his 
leaving Baltimore, 309-312, 359; 
significance of the New York call, 
318-319; interest in charities, 268, 
274-276, 430; connects Hopkins 
University with charitable work of 
community, 275; character of his 
work in charities, 280-281; member 
of Venezuelan Commission, 268, 269- 
271,. 326, 335-336, 3495 member of 
Baltimore Charter Commission, 269, 
271-272, 276; interest in Slater, Pea- 
body and General Education boards, 
267-268; various offices held, 268- 
269; Trustee of Russell Sage Foun- 
dation, 268, 278-280; founds '91 
Club, 421-422; contributor to Na- 
tion, 272; "University Problems," 
2 73, 350; Introduction to "Democ- 
racy in America," 273, 351-352; his 
life of Dana, 57, 273, 417; his life of 
Monroe, 273; reasons for retirement 
from Hopkins presidency, 382-385; 
resignation, Feb. 22, 1901, 385 ; 
Commemoration Day, 1900, 385-388; 






INDEX 



441 



address of faculty quoted, 386-387; 
twenty-fifth anniversary, 388-390; 
testimonial of alumni and faculty 
quoted, 388-389; President Eliot's 
address quoted, 389-390; first inti- 
mations of Carnegie Institution, 384, 
390-391; interview with Carnegie, 
392-393; elected President of Carne- 
gie Institution, 393; address to Trus- 
tees, quoted, 393-396; enthusiasm, 
401; trip to Europe to study new 
problems, 398; hampered in work as 
President, 398; secures modification 
of by-laws, 399; resigns presidency, 
399,402; summers at Northeast Har- 
bor, 416-420; "Over-Edge" built, 
417; visitors at "Over-Edge," 419- 
420, 431-432; efforts for improve- 
ment of village of Northeast Harbor, 
417-418; appearance, etc., about 1891, 
422-423; his reserve, 423-424; depth 
of his family affection, 404-405; occu- 
pations after retirement, 424-425; 
failing health, 432-433; last trip 
abroad, 425-426, 433; last days, 327, 
434; death at Norwich, 426, 433; 
characterization by Mrs. Gilman, 
429-434; religious faith, 429; sym- 
pathetic insight into character, 430; 
home life, 430-432. 

Letters: to Charles Loring Brace, 
13-14; to George J. Brush, 191-192; 
to Jacob Cooper, 67, 74-75, 96-97, 
384-385; to Mrs. Dana, 46-49, 65- 
67, 67-68; to Robert W. De Forest, 
278-279; to Gilman family, 19-20, 
22-27, 3 2 -35> 80, 154-15S, 258-259, 
288-299, 401, 408-409, 410-411, 412- 
413; to Edward W. Gilman, 36-37, 
52-53, 58-60, 64-65; to Elisabeth 
Gilman, 409-410, 411-412, 414-415; 
to Maria P. Gilman, 27-32, 49-51; 
to William C. Gilman, 11-13; to 
Burdett Hart, 303, 304, 305; to Johns 
Hopkins Faculty, 312; to Johns Hop- 
kins Trustees, 185-187, 198-200, 202- 
2ii ; to Mrs. Lane, 162-163, I 9 I , 4°6, 
407; to Sidney Lanier, 241-244; to 
Augustus Lowell, 300-301, 302; to 
President Porter, 106-107; to Ed- 
ward Tompkins, 116-117; o N. B. 
Van Slyke, 88; to Mrs. Everett P. 
Wheeler, 414, 415; to Andrew D. 
White, 91, 97-98, 105, 107-108, 155- 
157, 162, 163, 169-171, 3 2 8-339, 400- 
401; to W. D. Whitney, 92-94; to 
President Woolsey, 77-78. Auto- 
biographical notes quoted, 187-189, 
193-194, 201, 202, 222-223, 224- 
225. 



Gilman, Edward (of Hingham), 1. 

, Edward W., letters to, 36-37, 52- 

53, 58-60, 64-65; 67. 

, Elisabeth, 105, 106, 404, 407; let- 
ters to, 408-410, 411-412, 414-415. 

, Elisabeth Dwight Woolsey, mar- 
riage, 281, 404; letters from, quoted, 
259, 281-282, 387-388; note on Gil- 
man as Director of Hopkins Hospital 
quoted, 260; letters to, from A. D. 
White, 321-327; 423; author of pp. 
429-434 of biography, 425, see Pref- 
ace; death of, see Preface. 

, Eliza Coit, characterized, 4. 

, Louise, see Lane, Mrs. George W. 

, Maria P., Gilman's intimacy 

with, 27; letters to, 27-32, 49-51; let- 
ter from, 405-406. 

, Mary Ketcham, marriage, 70, 404; 

87; illness and death, 91-92, 94, 116; 
characterized, 404. 

, William Charles, Sr., character 

of, 2-4; letter to, 11-13; influence on 
son, n, 429-430; 67; death, 75. 

— — , William Charles, author of Chap- 
ter I, see Preface; letter from, quoted, 
423-424. 

Gilmans, English, 281-282, 290. 

Glenn, John M., 275. 

Godkin, E. L., editorial of, quoted, 188- 
189; letters from, 361. 

Grace, Miss, 353. 

Grangers, make-up of party, 142; me- 
morial on University of California 
addressed to Legislature, 143-144; 
Henry George influenced by, 146; 
crisis in University's affairs caused 
by, 153-156; Carr upheld by, 166- 
167; 169, 170, 171. 

Grant, S. Hastings, 7. 

Gray, Judge, 419. 

Greeley, Horace, letters from, 361-362. 

Gregory, Dr., 119. 

Griffin, Edward H., 311; letter from, 
427-428. 

Grotius, Hugo, 338. 

Group system of studies, 87, 227. 

Guyot, Arnold, 15, 58, 65, 66, 68. 

Gwinn, Charles J. M., 187. 

Hadley, Prof. James, 8, 67, 92, 93. 

Hagenbach's "History of the Church," 
quoted, 434. 

Hahn, Dr., 207. 

Haight, Governor, 114, 116, 148, 155; 
letter from, quoted, 161; 162, 170. 

Hall, Bishop, 417. 

, Dr. Cuthbert, 419. 

Hallidie, Andrew S., champions poly- 
technic instruction, 132-133. 



442 



INDEX 



Halsted, Dr. William S., 254. 

Hart, Rev. Burdett, correspondence 

with Gilman respecting Yale presi- 
dency, 303-305- 
Harte, Bret, 140. 
Harvard Observatory, 166. 
Harvard University, Gilman a student 

at, 15; 101, 102, 139, 189, 201, 216, 222, 

227, 235; influenced by Hopkins 

University, 389. 
Haupt, Paul, 295, 296, 298. 
Hayden, Dr., 203. 
Hayes, Rutherford B., 268, 334. 

Hecker, , 36. 

Helmholtz, Professor, 206, 290, 292. 

Henry, Joseph, 213. 

Herrick, Edward C, Librarian at Yale, 

43; resignation of, 53. 
Hesse, Frederick G., 168. 
Hewitt, Abram S., 394, 400. 
Hilgard, Eugene W., 166, 168, 169, 170. 
Hillhouse Library secured for Yale, 90- 

91. 
Hoar, George F., letter from, 362-363. 
Hodges, J. S. B., 407. 
Holden, Edward S., 123, 166. 
Holmes, O. W., 240. 
Holt, Henry, letters from, 363, 426. 
Hooker, Joseph D., 199; letter from, 

212; 214. 
Hopkins, Johns, 179, 183, 257, 261; 

quoted, 265, 267. 
Hopkins Hall Lectures, 242, 
Howell, Dr. William H., 252; address 

at Gilman memorial meeting quoted, 

254-256. 
Hoyt, Governor, 395. 
Hubbard, Gardiner G., letters from, 364; 

death of, 337. 
Huntington, Simon, 2. 
, William R., letter from, 402-403; 

417. 
Hurd, Dr. Henry M., address at Gilman 

memorial meeting quoted, 260-263; 

3"- 

Hutton, Mrs., 334. 

Huxley, Thomas Henry, recommends 
Martin for Hopkins Professorship, 
217, 251; Gilman's first meeting with, 
222; his method of preparing lec- 
tures, 222-223; orator at opening of 
Hopkins University, 220-221; ad- 
dress quoted, 223-224; 211, 247. 

Irwin, Misses, 417. 

James, Professor, 235. 
Japanese Indemnity Fund, 121. 
Jebb, Richard C., 239, 292; letter from, 
364-365; 422. 



Jefferson, Thomas, 388. 

Jewell, Marshall, letters to, from Gil- 
man, 99, 100-101. 

Johns Hopkins Hospital, relation of, to 
Medical School, 251, 265; staff of, 
254; delay in opening of, 252, 257- 
258; Gilman appointed Director, 258- 
260; Gilman's work as Director, 260- 
263; proposal that medical instruc- 
tion should be begun by, 263-264; 
relations of Hospital and University 
defined by Gilman, 264-267. 

Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical 
and Political Science, 231, 348. 

Johns Hopkins University, freedom of 
its Trustees from restrictions, 179, 
183, 190-191; early plans of Trustees, 
193-194; Gilman recommended for 
President, 170, 194-195, 324~3 2 5; 
correspondence on presidency, 184- 
187; Gilman's first meeting with Trus- 
tees, 187-189, 191; the founding of a 
true university Gilman's object, 182- 
183, 188; criticism of local newspaper, 
189-190; graduate work the predom- 
inant interest of, 195-196; Gilman's 
letters to Trustees, 198-200, 202-211; 
character of Trustees, 202, 220; ap- 
pointment of Rowland, 196-199, 217; 
appointment of Sylvester, 212-215; 
appointment of Gildersleeve, 215- 
216; appointment of Remsen, Martin, 
Morris, 217-218; Gilman the co-or- 
dinating mind of, 219; absence of 
sectarianism, 220; Huxley's address 
at opening of, 220-221, 223-224; 
first buildings, 224-225; undergrad- 
uate instruction, 217, 225-227; char- 
acter of graduate department, 227- 
228; fellowships, 228-229; scientific 
journals, 229-231; various publica- 
tions of, 231-233; public lectures, 
233-239; appointment of Lanier, 
241-244; associated with charitable 
work of community, 275; Clifton 
controversy, 306-307; financial diffi- 
culties, 307-308; relief fund, 308, 
310; Gilman's call to New York, 
308-319; protests against Gilman's 
leaving, 310-312; reasons for Gil- 
man's resignation, 382-385; address 
of Faculty, Commemoration Day, 
1900, quoted, 386-387; twenty-fifth 
anniversary, 194, 257, 385, 388-390; 
address of Alumni and Faculty 
quoted, 388-389; Eliot's address 
quoted, 389-390; addresses at Gil- 
man memorial meetings quoted, 254- 
257, 260-263. 
Medical School: advance in medical 



INDEX 



443 



education made by, 244-245; Gil- 
man's views concerning, outlined in 
inaugural address, 245-247; Gilman 
advocates preliminary medical course 
and high standards of admission to, 
248-250; his account of origin and 
history of, 251-254; admission of 
women, 252; opening of, 253; Gil- 
man defines relations of, and Hospital, 
263-267; debt of, to Gilman, 254- 

2 57- 
Johns Hopkins University Circulars, 232. 
Johnson, Reverdy, Jr., correspondence 

with Gilman, 184-187; 193, 210, 230, 

368, 374, 375- 

, Professor, 103. 

, Samuel W., 44. 

Jones, William Carey, author of Chap- 
ter III, see Preface. 

Jowett, Dr., 211. 

Keller, Helen, letter from, 365. 
Kellogg, Martin, in, 114. 
Kelly, Dr. Howard A., 254. 
Kelvin, Lord, 287, 290, 292. 
Ketcham, Treadwell, 70; gift to Yale, 

84- 
Key, Francis Scott, 240. 
King, Francis T., 208, 258-259, 261,353. 
Kingsley, Charles, Gilman introduced 

to, 46; lectures at Berkeley, 137. 

, Henry, 70. 

, James L., 8, 9, 43. 

, William L., 43, 59. 

Lane, Mrs. George W., letters to, from 
Gilman, 162-163, 191, 406, 4°7- 

Lanier, Mary D., letter from, 365-366. 

, Sidney, cantata at Philadelphia 

Centennial described by Gilman, 240- 
.241; appointed lecturer at Johns 
Hopkins, 241; letters to, from Gil- 
man, 241-244; letter from, quoted, 
366. 

Lanman, Charles R., 201, 380, 413. 

Larned, Professor, 8, 57. 

Lathrop, Rev. John, 2. 

"Launching of a University," quoted, 
197-198, 213, 220-222, 236-238, 392- 

F* 393; 202, 425. 

Lavigerie, Cardinal, 283. 

Lecky, W. E. H, 352. 

Le Conte, John, 1 11, 131, i73 _I 74- 

— — , Joseph, in. 

Lee, Sidney, 422. 

Leland Stanford Junior University, 127. 

Lepsius, Karl Richard, 33-34, 3 2 6- 

Lick, James, 119, 133. 

Lick Observatory, 165-166. 

Lick's Polytechnic School, 165. 



Lieber, Francis, 329-330; Gilman edi- 
tor of writings of, 273; letters from, 
366-367. 

Livingstone, David, 57. 

Lounsbury, Thomas R., 44. 

Low, F. F., 136. 

, Seth, letter from, 313-3*4; 3 X 5- 

Lowe, Houston, impression of Gilman 
as teacher, quoted, 74. 

Lowell, Augustus, correspondence with 
Gilman, 300-302. 

, James Russell, 234, 236, 237-238, 

286, 355; letter from, 367-368. 

, President, 239. 

Ludlow, Rev. Henry J., 57. 

Lyman, Chester S., 44. 

M'Calister, Professor, 290. 
McClellan, General, offered presidency 

of University of California, 112. 
McLean, Rev. John Knox, quoted on 

Gilman's influence in Berkeley Club, 

124-125. 
MacMahon, Marshal, 203. 
Mahaffy, Professor, 200. 
Mallet, Professor, 234, 235. 
Manning, Dr., 419. 
Marshall, Milnes, 290. 
Martin, H. Newell, 217, 251-252, 253, 

256, 363, 4i3- 
Martineau, James, 287. 
Maryland Institute, Carnegie's gift to, 

4 2 5- 

Maryland State Board of Education, 
report of, quoted, 224. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
Gilman called to presidency of, 300- 
302. 

Maxwell, Clerk, 197, 198. 

Mechanics' Deliberative Assembly, Cal- 
ifornia, 143-144, 146, 153, l66 - S ee 
also Grangers. 

Mechanics' Institute, San Francisco, 
Gilman's lectures before, 132, 163. 

Mercantile Library, Baltimore, 269, 421. 

Merritt, Dr. Samuel, 129. 

Michie, General, Rowland recom- 
mended by, 197. 

Middletown Industrial School, Gilman's 
address at, 89, 91. 

Mills, D. O., letter from, quoted, 166. 

Miner, President, 136. 

Mitchell, Weir, letters from, 368. 

Mitsukuri, Professor, 252. 

Monroe, James, Gilman's life of, 273. 

Morgan, Professor, 252. 

Montpellier, University of, 283. 

Morrill, Senator, 71-73, 104. 

Morrill Land Bill, 7°-73, io 4, "o, " 2 > 
118-119, 131, 176. 



444 



INDEX 



Morris, Charles D., 217-218, 234. 

Moulder, A. J., 123, 148. 

Mount Desert, Gilman's interest in, 

420. 
Muhlenberg, Rev. Dr., 35. 
Miiller, Max, 286. 
Murray, John, 292. 

Nation, quoted, 100, 188-189, I 9S! Gil- 
man a frequent contributor to, 272; 
283, 357- , 

National Civil Service Reform League, 
Gilman President of, 268, 272, 425; 
letter from Carl Schurz concerning, 

372-373- 

National Schools of Science, 103-104, 
105. 

National University, Washington, 393; 
not interfered with by Carnegie In- 
stitution, 395. 

New Englander, quoted, 55-56; 43, 59, 
89, 98. 

New Haven, social life in, 43; condition 
of public schools in, 45 ; improvements 
in schools effected by Gilman, 52, 60- 
64; excitement at outbreak of Civil 
War in, 70; School Board of, 82; 77, 
298. 

New Haven Colony Historical Society, 
Gilman's address before, 88-89. 

New International Encyclopaedia, Gil- 
man editor of, 273-274. 

New York Public Schools, Gilman 
called to superintendency of, 308- 

3?9- 

New York World, 67. 

Newcomb, Simon, connection with 
Hopkins University, 239; letters from, 
231, 234, 369-370; honorary degree 
from Cracow, 297, 299; 166, 413. 

Ninety-one Club, 421-423. 

Northeast Harbor, Gilman's first visit 
to, 416; life at, 417; library of, 417- 
418; Neighborhood House, 418; Gil- 
man High School, 418-419; 273, 290. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, 236, 237. 

, William A., 44, 70. 

Norton Cadets, 70. 

Norton's Literary Gazette, 7, 15. 

Norwich, Conn., 1, 2, 3, 4; Dwight 
quoted on, 5; bicentennial of, 60; Gil- 
man's death at, 426. 

, England, 2, 281-282. 

Norwich Bulletin, quoted, 80. 

Oakland, hi, 135. Sec also Califor- 
nia, College of, and University of. 

Olmsted, Professor, 8, 67. 

Osier, Dr. William, 254, 415; letter from, 
quoted, 426-427. 



Overland Monthly, editorials quoted 
I34-I35, 179-181; 140, 150. 

Owen, Dr. John J., 8. 

Owens College, Manchester, visited by 
Gilman, 209-210. 

Oxford, University of , 211, 230, 247, 284. 

Patrons of Husbandry, see Grangers. 

Peabody Education Board, 267, 268, 
425- 

Peabody Institute, 220, 236, 269. 

Peasley, Dr., 313. 

Peck, Harry Thurston, 273; quoted, 
274. 

People's Independent Party, see Dolly 
Varden Party. 

Peirce, Benjamin, appointment of Syl- 
vester urged by, 213; letter from, 
214-215. 

, Charles S., 239. 

Pertz, Dr., 32-35, 325. 

Petermann, A., 57 (note); letter from, 

370-371- 

Phelps, William Walter, 95. 

Philadelphia Centennial Celebration, 
Lanier's cantata at, 240-241. 

Philosophical Magazine, 197, 199, 211. 

Philanthropic work, principles of, laid 
down by Gilman in 1870, 89. 

Philological Society, 57. 

Pine, John B., letter from, 315-316. 

Poe, Edgar Allen, 240. 

Porter, John A., 43, 72; his Farmers' 
Course, 68-69. 

, Noah, 21, 29, 30, 36, 66, 70; cor- 
respondence with Gilman, 106-107; 

325,357- 
Post, San Francisco, 150; quoted, 151. 
Potter, Bishop, 422. 
Power & Ough, 147-149. 
Powers, Hiram, Gilman's meeting with, 

50-51- 

Prince, ,334. 

Princeton, Gilman's lectures at, 96-97. 
Pumpelly, R., 370. 
Purdue University, 118. 
Putzker, Albin, 168-169. 

Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied 

Mathematics, 230. 
Queen's Institute, Dublin, 201. 

Rabillon, Professor, 234, 354. 
Ralston, William C, 148, 151; quoted, 

I53-I54- 
Randall, James R., 240. 
Ranke, Professor, 206. 
Reed Memorial Fund, 420. 
Remsen, Ira, appointed Professor in 

Hopkins University, 217; editor of 



INDEX 



445 



American Chemical Journal, 230; let- 
ter from, concerning publication of 
notes from Laboratory, 232-233; 
234, 253, 256, 311; installation of, as 
President, 388; 413. 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 197. 

Research, idea of, fundamental at Johns 
Hopkins University, 227-228, 244, 
388, 390; object of the Carnegie In- 
stitution, 396. 

Reymond, Du Bois, 206. 

Reynolds, Professor, 203. 

Rhodes, James Ford, 419. 

Richthofen, Baron, 206. 

Rising, Willard B., in, 132, 170. 

Ritter, Carl, 32, 68, 326. 

Ritterhaus, Dr., 207. 

Rockefeller, John D., 279. 

Rolleston, George, 211. 

Ropes, William, 31. 

Roscoe, Professor, 209, 211. 

Rowland, Henry A., recommended to 
Gilman, 197; visit to Europe with 
Gilman, 198-199; 211; appointed 
Professor in Hopkins University, 
217; 299, 370; letter from, 371. 

Royce, Josiah, quoted on early days at 
Johns Hopkins, 229; 242; letter 
from, 372; 413. 

Russell Sage Foundation, 268, 275, 278- 
280, 425. 

Salisbury, Professor, 58, 59. 
Sargent, John S., 254. 
Satterlee, Bishop, 420. 
Schleiermacher's Monologen quoted, 

434- 

Schouler Lectureship, 239. 

Schurz, Carl, letter from, 372-373; 425. 

Scientific journals at Hopkins Uni- 
versity, 229-231. 

Scribncr's Magazine, 425. 

Sedgwick, William T., 252. 

Seminars at Hopkins University, 228. 

Seymour, Thomas H., 15, 21, 23, 24, 25, 
26. 

Shairp, Principal, 210. 

Shaler, William, 283. 

Shattuck, Professor, 119. 

Sheffield, Charles J., 95. 

, Joseph Earl, gift to Yale Scien- 
tific School, 84; 94, 96; character- 
ized by Gilman, 95-96. 

Sheffield Scientific School, see under 
Yale. 

Sidgwick, Professor, 211. 

Sienkiewicz, 296, 297. 

Sill, Edward R., 140, 168. 

Silliman, Benjamin, 8, 41, 53. 

, Benjamin, Jr., 44. 



Slater Board, 267-268, 425. 

Slidell, John, 73. 

Smith, Cornelius B., 417. 

, George Adam, letter from, 373; 

419. 

, Bishop McKay, 419. 

Smithsonian Institution, 394. 

Soule, Frank, in, 132. 

South Atlantic Quarterly, quoted, 240- 
241. 

Spence, W. W., 262. 

Spencer, Herbert, 211. 

Stamford, Lord, 292-293. 

Stearns, R. E. C, 123. 

Stebbins, Rev. Dr., 136, 148, 155. 

Stedman, C. E., 239. 

Stevens, Henry, 7. 

Stiles, President, 69. 

Stokes, Professor, 211. 

Street, Augustus R., 56, 75. 

Strong, W. L., letter from, 314-315. 

Sun, Baltimore, 347, 357. 

Swinton, John, 145. 

, William, in, 145, 155-156, 157- 

158, 162. 

Sylvester, J. J., suggested to Gilman by 
Hooker, 199, 212; reputation of, 
213; cordiality of relations with Gil- 
man, 214; suggested by Peirce, 214- 
215; appointed Professor in Hopkins 
University, 215, 216; quoted on 
origin of American Journal of Mathe- 
matics, 230-231; letters from, 374- 
377; 216, 237, 238, 299, 353, 369, 
412,413. 

Tait, Professor, 211, 292. 
Teachers' College, 138. 
Technical education, 132-133, 138. 
Thacher, Professor, 8, 80, 100. 
Thayer, Dr. William S., 415. 
Thomas, Dr. James Carey, 368, 412; 

letter from, 377. 
Thompson, Rev. J. P., 16, 36, 114, 

205. 
Thomson, Sir William, see Kelvin, Lord. 
Tiffany, Archdeacon, 419. 
Todhunter, Isaac, 211. 
Toland, H. H., 126. 
Toland Medical College, affiliated with 

University of California, 126-127. 
Tomlinson, Henry A., 57. 
Tompkins, Edward, letters from, 113- 

115; letter to, from Gilman, 116-117; 

120-121. 
Toynbee Hall, 293. 
Tracy, Calvin, 5, 6. 
Trendelenburg, F. Adolph, 32, 57. 
Trowbridge, W. P., 44, 94, 104. 
Tulloch, Principal, 210. 



446 



INDEX 



Turnbull, Lawrence, letter from, 377— 

378. 
Turnbull Lectureship, 239. 
Turner, Sir William, 292. 
Tyndall, John, 211. 

University idea, naturalized in Amer- 
ica by Gilman, 182-183, 3&3> 389; 
criticism of, 189-190; 227-228. 

"University Problems," 273. 

University Quarterly, 69. 

Van Slyke, N. B., letter to, from Gil- 
man, 88. 

Venezuelan Commission, 268, 269-271, 
33.6.. 

Virginia, University of, 192, 388. 

Von Hoist, Professor, 201, 205. 

Walcott, Charles D., 394, 400. 

Walker, Francis A., 156, 203, 234, 235, 
286, 300, 301. 

Wallis, S. T., 237; letter from, 378-379. 

Ward, Samuel R., 323. 

Warner, Amos G., 274-275. 

Washington Academy of Sciences, 395. 

Washington Cathedral, 420. 

Washington Memorial Institution, 396. 

Welcker, W. T., in. 

Welch, Dr. William H., 253, 254, 255; 
address of, quoted, 256-257; 266, 
420. 

Welles, Dr., 47. 

West Point, 197. 

Wheeler, Mrs. Everett P., 404; letters 
to, from Gilman, 408-409, 414, 415. 

White, Andrew D., friendship with Gil- 
man, 9, 320, 321; goes to Europe with 
Gilman, 15; consulted by Hopkins 
Trustees, 170, 193, 194, 324-325; 
recollections of Gilman, 321-327; 118, 
271, 364, 392, 401, 419; letters from, 
339-346, 391; letters to, from Gil- 
man, 90-91, 97-98, 105, 107-108, 
iSS-W, 162, 163, 169-171, 328-339, 
400-401. 

White, Henry, 57. 

Whitney, Elizabeth B., letter from, 379- 
380. 

, the Misses, authors of Chapter II, 

see Preface. 

, William D., 44, 57, 59, 79, 84, 92, 

157, 191, I9 2 , 234, 235. 



Williams, Virgil, 140. 

, Col., 217. 

Wilmerding, J. C, 133. 

Wilson, E. B., 252. 

, Woodrow, letter from, 380-381; 

388. 

Winchell, Alexander, 344-345. 

Winchester Observatory, 96. 

Wisconsin, University of, Gilman called 
to presidency of, 87-88, 102. 

Wister, Mrs. Caspar, 417. 

Woodberry, George E., 239. 

Woolsey, President, 8, 57, 76; corre- 
spondence with Gilman, 77-79; 
quoted, 82-83; 98, 99, 100, 101, 376. 

Wright, Carroll D., 394. 

Yale, Gilman a student at, 8-10; Gil- 
man Assistant Librarian, 43, 44, 46, 
53; condition of library, 53-54, 75~77J 
art exhibit at, 54-56; art school of, 
56, 75; Porter's lectures, 68;. Gil- 
man's historical sketch of library of, 
69; art loan exhibition, 75; Gilman's 
resignation as Librarian, 77-79; im- 
provements in library, 79-80; Gil- 
man's address at 150th anniversary 
of, 88-89; gift °f Winchester Obser- 
vatory to, 96; resignation of Woolsey, 
98; "Old Yale" and "Young Yale," 
98; changes in corporation of, 98-101 ; 
question of Woolsey's successor, 101- 
102; indebtedness of Hopkins Uni- 
versity to, 109; Gilman mentioned for 
President of (1898), 302-305. 

Scientific School: Gilman employed 
in raising funds for, 40-43, 44; land 
grant to, 69, 71-73; Gilman's work 
as Secretary of, 82-83; Gilman ap- 
pointed Professor of Physical Geog- 
raphy, 73-74; lectures to mechanics, 
85; struggle for funds, 85-87, 89-90; 
Hillhouse Library secured for, 90-91; 
incorporated, 94-95; complete sepa- 
ration of, from College, 97-98; ap- 
preciation of Gilman's work in, 102; 
completion of quarter-million endow- 
ment, 104-105; development of, 
through Gilman's efforts, 108-109; 
192, 205, 246, 249, 324. 

Yantic Cemetery, Norwich, Gilman 
buried in, 426. 

Young, Brigham, 119. 



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